The role of connectivity solutions in helping enterprises reduce environmental impact
by Webbing Team
IoT technology is considered to be eco-friendly, and not for the sole reason of becoming a key tool that helps address environmental challenges, optimize energy usage, and resource consumption. Apart from their use cases, IoT devices are oftentimes small, and they use less power for the same tasks than larger devices would use.
With the popularity of IoT and global adoption, the number of IoT devices keeps growing. According to IoT Analytics, there were 16.6 billion connected IoT devices in 2023, their number is expected to increase to 18.8 billion by the end of 2024, and experts forecast there will be 40 billion devices by 2030. But this growth inevitably leads to increasing needs for energy and resources, which raises the question of the environmental impact of IoT. Fortunately, there is a way to reduce it and make IoT devices more environment-friendly, even without major changes in manufacturing processes.
Connectivity is Key
Connectivity, as the main requirement for IoT devices, holds numerous possibilities to improve sustainability practices and make devices “greener”. Choosing the right type of connectivity and solutions can notably reduce the carbon footprint of any IoT deployment.
In that regard, cellular connection would be optimal for the majority of IoT use cases. First of all, cellular-connected IoT devices require less plastic and other materials than the ones using wired connections, thus producing less e-waste. Second, they rely on almost omnipresent cellular networks, which eliminates the need to build additional infrastructure and all its collateral damage to the environment.
The next important criterion is the type of SIM card. Although the plugin size of SIM cards continues to shrink, experts from Juniper Research say that approximately 4.5 billion SIM cards are issued and shipped each year, which accounts for over 18,000 tons of plastic waste and 560,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted annually.
The type of SIM card is particularly important for the IoT realm, where deployments may involve thousands of SIM cards. The emergence of eSIM, an embedded SIM soldered directly on the circuit board in the device, became a game-changer in IoT – not only in terms of technology and business, but also in terms of environmental impact. The new technology promised a solution that substantially reduced the amount of resources needed for SIM manufacturing.
That being said, the term eSIM is oftentimes used to describe not the embedded SIM per se, but a technology called eUICC, the software package running on the SIM card of any form factor. Thus, enterprises that deploy IoT devices may choose between embedded or removable eSIMs, and many of them prefer removable solutions for reasons such as cost efficiency or faster time-to-market.
It may seem that the reduced need for resources spent on manufacturing and distributing physical SIMs is less relevant here. However, it is important to remember that eUICC is remotely programmable and reprogrammable, can host multiple profiles, and has Over-The-Air (OTA) provisioning capabilities. Basically, one physical eSIM can replace several SIMs from different vendors, so having even a removable eSIM allows to significantly reduce plastic waste and carbon footprint related to their production and shipping.
The Role of eSIM
With eSIM, there is no need for multiple SIM cards in many use cases. For example, since a traditional UICC SIM can only contain one profile, and every network may have its weak spots, there’s a need to use multiple SIMs in devices that require continuous connectivity, which only increases their carbon footprint.
There are other problems, such as compliance with local connectivity regulations. In some countries where permanent roaming is banned, it would either require changing SIMs or having several production lines for different regions, with different carrier SIMs, which, along with the cost of manufacturing, supply and logistics greatly increases environmental impact.
However, the most significant contribution of eSIMs to sustainability and minimizing IoT’s environmental impact may lie elsewhere. Before eSIMs, in case of connectivity loss or provider change each IoT device required manual SIM replacement, which meant technicians’ travel to the device. Considering the scale of IoT deployments and the fact that oftentimes IoT devices are deployed in far away locations, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during these maintenance trips can easily exceed the emissions during manufacturing and SIM shipments. Moreover, eSIM allows to save resources, time and expenses spent on such travels. For example, a change of local provider that before would have taken weeks and require changing SIMs in the devices manually, now can be done within hours. This applies to scaling as well: no matter how many devices need to be connected and where, they can be activated and provisioned remotely.
With all the advantages of eSIMs mentioned, it’s important to remember that there are many vendors offering different connectivity solutions based on eSIM technology. The capabilities they have may be critical not only for certain use cases, but also for the environmental impact of IoT deployments.
OTA Provisioning Architecture
Over-the-air provisioning is the key capability of an eSIM. However, when eSIM just emerged, there were 2 over-the-air provisioning architectures, and they had certain limitations: the M2M was rather complex and the Consumer not quite suitable for IoT devices without a user interface. The new GSMA IoT eSIM Remote Provisioning Standard (SGP.32 specification) was created to eliminate these hurdles.
The new specification greatly simplified mechanism enables connectivity provisioning of the eSIM, unlocking all of its value. The ability to choose a provider based on any criteria at the most appropriate time is a big advantage of eSIMs. It is also possible now to address all device types using eSIM, including constrained devices, such as NB-IoT devices, that could not be addressed before. This is critical for IoT projects involving devices with a long lifecycle that need long-term connectivity support.
The new specification standardization is expected to be finished in 2025. However, there are solutions such as WebbingCTRL, that allow to reap the benefits of the new standard without waiting until SGP.32 becomes ubiquitous.
Management Platform
Connectivity Management Platforms (CMPs) are centralized management tools that allow to remotely manage large fleets of IoT devices. They enable businesses to activate and deactivate SIM cards or devices centrally and remotely as needed, and their functionality includes OTA updates, diagnostics, device configuration, and security management. CMPs also allow to view data plans, add new users and services, manage devices, track their health, performance and data usage, and set up device-specific settings such as data limits.
Some connectivity providers develop and maintain their own connectivity management platforms that help their clients control and monitor IoT devices. These platforms and the portals that allow to use them are tightly integrated with the provider’s network infrastructure and services, and oftentimes offer customized features tailored to the specific needs of their clients’ use cases.
Whether or not a connectivity provider offers such a tool, and its customization capabilities can be critical in the context of sustainability practices.
Webbing’s Solution
The history of Webbing’s eSIM solution dates back nearly a decade. When the first Consumer remote provisioning specifications were published in 2015, Webbing recognized the immense benefits of this standard for enterprises. This led to the development of a new product that would follow the same concept, allowing for simple and flexible remote eSIM provisioning in IoT devices. In April 2022, Webbing rolled out WebbingCTRL, a pre-standard eSIM remote provisioning solution that adapted the Consumer architecture for use in IoT devices with no user interface.
A year later, the GSMA published the SGP.32 eSIM IoT Technical Specification, a new standard for remote provisioning tailored specifically for IoT devices. Webbing played an active role in the GSMA working group that developed SGP.32, ensuring it was easy to implement and applicable across diverse IoT use cases. The SGP.32 standard is expected to become commercially available in 2025, with early adopters likely launching compliant products by 2027.
WebbingCTRL’s architecture and capabilities are closely aligned with GSMA SGP.32, enabling a seamless transition when the new standard becomes ubiquitous. WebbingCTRL has all the capabilities of SGP.32, enabling organizations to remotely add, remove, and swap operators for any number of IoT deployments immediately without operator integration or collaboration. It guarantees failover connectivity with the capability of using multiple mobile carrier profiles, easily changing carriers at any time with zero integration, and an option to fall back from a failing profile to a different profile without any need to communicate with a remote server.
Our eSIM solution provides numerous additional features to ensure continuous, reliable connectivity for IoT devices globally, while ensuring compliance with local regulations. This eliminates the need for contracting with multiple mobile operators or changing SIM cards, simplifying operations for enterprises and helping minimize the environmental impact of their IoT projects.
In addition, WebbingCTRL provides a centralized way to manage eSIMs/SIMs lifecycle and profile inventory, as well as visibility into device data usage. Companies can set up business rules that would allow devices to change the serving operator automatically under specific conditions, such as location, country, loss of connectivity or even after a certain amount of time. WebbingCTRL management platform works with both SGP.32 and SGP.22 standards, and also supports M2M devices for relevant use cases. It provides a single pane of glass to manage all devices regardless of standards used, offering enterprises greater flexibility for IoT deployments.
More than 1 million WebbingCTRL eSIMs/SIMs have already been deployed globally since its release in April 2022.
Reach out to learn more about WebbingCTRL.
