Essential criteria for successful deployments
by Justin Livesay
As more and more enterprises start using cellular connectivity for their IoT deployments, its growth is accelerating. According to IoT Analytics’ State of IoT Summer 2024 report, last year, cellular IoT connections grew by 24%, strongly surpassing the growth rate for global IoT connections in general. Cellular IoT now makes up nearly 21% of all IoT connections. In the next four years, the global number of cellular IoT devices will almost double from 3.4 billion to 6.5 billion.
Cellular connectivity offers numerous benefits. Mobile networks are omnipresent, and in some areas, they are the only available means of connectivity. The global reach, ease of deployment, scalability, robust security, and cost-effectiveness make it an excellent option for a wide range of IoT applications. Additionally, ongoing advancements in cellular technology continue to enable even the most demanding use cases.
Yet, the “one-size-fits-all” approach doesn’t work for cellular IoT. Each deployment has very specific requirements, which include IoT devices, locations, usage scenarios and business objectives. With various types of providers that offer cellular connectivity, it’s essential to remember that in many cases their capabilities may not align with certain needs.
However, with all possible intricacies, there are six key criteria that should be considered for every deployment. These are sometimes referred to as the 6 Cs of cellular IoT connectivity: Core, Coverage, Carriers, Control, Cost, and Compliance. It’s important to assess whether the connectivity provider you plan to partner with—or even your existing provider—meets all six of these criteria.
Core
Core network is an essential part of modern cellular communication systems that plays a key role in connectivity. Its main function is routing and transferring data traffic, it is also responsible for identification of devices and their location, authentication and authorization to use certain services, and keeping track of service usage. But there is more to it than just carrying out all key functions, for a lot of critical connectivity features for any IoT deployment depend on a core network that your provider owns, its architecture, components, and network solutions used.
There are several types of connectivity providers that differ from each other by the share of infrastructure they own and, subsequently, the amount of service they can provide. Regular cellular network operators (MNOs) own both a core network and a radio access network, but their services are not tailored for IoT deployments. Mobile Virtual Network Providers (MVNOs) that use other operators’ infrastructure to provide their services may offer tailored IoT connectivity, but oftentimes they don’t have their own core network. In such a case they are dependent on other operators’ core networks, which implies limited control both technically and business-wise, affecting their value proposition. Only full MVNOs have a full-scale core network of their own, which gives them flexibility in their offering and ability to cater to all the needs and specifics of certain use cases, which is essential for IoT deployments.
The best illustration of the core network’s importance is latency. Whenever an IoT device sends some data using a cellular connection, it goes through the mobile core network to the connectivity provider’s data center before reaching its destination. The further away this data center is from both the device and the receiving point, the longer the data will have to travel. Thus, the actual level of latency would be defined by the geographical architecture of a core network. So in every use case where latency is critical – for example, connected cars or broadcasting – it’ll be crucial that the connectivity provider has a full-scale core network of its own and can configure it to ensure minimal latency, no matter where devices may roam.
Coverage
Sufficient coverage is an essential requirement for all types of cellular-enabled IoT devices and use cases. Cellular coverage is not uniform across all regions, usually due to a lack of necessary infrastructure. A carrier may provide great coverage in one area and spotty or absent coverage in another. Since IoT devices can be deployed in different areas, including remote locations and temporary work sites, or be mobile and move between them, providing good coverage in all areas is crucial.
Whereas with traditional SIM cards IoT devices would risk losing connectivity in areas with spotty coverage, the situation has changed with the emergence of eUICC SIMs, also known as eSIM, that allow new profiles to be remotely downloaded and activated at any time, regardless of a device’s location. The technology was a real game changer, and today some providers offer eSIM-based solutions that enable devices to dynamically switch between network providers depending on which one has the best coverage in each area. This ensures continuous connectivity even in remote areas without needing to manually replace or switch SIM cards and seamless transition between local carriers. eSIM allows over-the-air (OTA) updates, can be remotely configured and helps devices to be more carrier-agnostic, meaning that IoT devices are not locked into one network provider. It works the same way with roaming, with global deployments or when IoT devices need to travel to other regions.
Whether coverage is adequate for a certain IoT deployment depends on how many carrier partners your connectivity provider has.
Carriers
Carriers network is another key component of successful IoT deployment. Some IoT devices are constantly moving, like connected vehicles, and even some stationary devices should be able to connect to any provider’s cellular tower – not only because it may be the only available tower, but also because each mobile network may have weak spots. Moreover, in certain use cases such as live video broadcasting, two or more cellular connections are combined to provide better stability and more bandwidth. In all these use cases ensuring reliable connectivity requires contracting several operators in all regions devices are deployed or may travel to. This can become a real hurdle, especially for global deployments.
Although some carriers offer roaming-based services that can provide comprehensive coverage globally, this usually comes with high latency issues and less competitive rates. However, there are MVNOs that usually have service agreements with MNOs for use of their radio access network. Therefore, some of them can easily provide access to several local networks to ensure continuous connectivity for devices wherever they are located. For these reasons, it is recommended to make sure your provider has a sufficient partner network before deploying IoT devices.
Control
To make their IoT deployments successful, enterprises need to have full transparency of how much data is being used by each device, when and where. The ability to access statistics on data usage at any moment allows to closely monitor the way connectivity works and make necessary adjustments to business operations to optimize costs.
Also critical for IoT deployments are advanced device management capabilities that allow to remotely provision, manage, and monitor IoT devices. That includes features like over-the-air (OTA) updates, diagnostics, device configuration, and security management. SIMs can be activated and managed centrally and remotely, making it suitable for large-scale deployments of unmanned devices in any area. Although some of these capabilities may be available in MNOs connectivity offerings, the latter generally do not provide advanced device management features. They may lack functionalities like remote device provisioning, OTA updates, and granular control over IoT device settings.
Connectivity providers’ offerings may be very different in terms of visibility and control features. Some providers even have management platforms that enable their clients to make all necessary changes, including setting their own business rules based on devices’ location or data usage.
Cost
Cost is a critical factor when evaluating IoT connectivity solutions. It includes not only the initial setup cost but also ongoing operational costs such as data transmission fees, device management, and maintenance. It is also worth considering in the context of scalability and any possible changes that may be made to deployed IoT devices further down the line.
Connectivity providers’ pricing needs to be very flexible compared to regular cellular contracts that typically offer predefined plans with fixed data volume of data and network configurations. IoT devices may use data at different rates, depending on the device type and use case. Some devices send small amounts of data a few times in a certain period, like a smart meter transmitting data on water or electricity consumption. Others may need to gather and send a lot of data non-stop, like sensors in a connected vehicle. IoT service providers should offer flexible and customizable data plans to accommodate the diverse needs of IoT deployments. Such data plans provide options for low-power devices, intermittent connectivity, specialized protocols, and customized data limits. Pricing models should be designed to be cost-effective for large-scale deployments. These contracts must be tailored based on the data use of certain devices, and also more flexible than regular cellular connectivity contracts in terms of pausing, canceling or renewing.
Compliance
74% of all countries in the world have regulations on connectivity, data sovereignty, and data protection, while the rest have them drafted and likely to be enacted in the nearest future. These legislation acts directly impact IoT deployments, and depending on the use cases and the markets that certain devices are deployed to, there can be dozens of regulations to comply with. They may require registering a domestic operating company, preventing any IoT data from leaving the country where it was generated or registering with a local dispute resolution service.
It can be a serious challenge for global IoT deployments, because to comply with local regulations enterprises may need to either reach an agreement with an operator that owns local infrastructure or add necessary elements to their connectivity providers’ core network, which is only possible if it’s a full MVNO. In heavily regulated countries like Turkey they might also have to make some additional integrations with local authorized entities to provide seamless connectivity. In terms of compliance, there is no recipe that would work for all IoT deployments. With use cases that vary so much and changing regulations in many countries it is crucial for enterprises deploying IoT devices globally to have flexibility and many localization options to choose from.
Webbing’s Solution
Webbing offers a connectivity solution that ensures global access to reliable and high-quality internet, with low latency and the best of class coverage. It provides secure and continuous internet connection for devices on the move, wherever they need it.
As a global MVNO, Webbing’s network of 600+ mobile operators guarantee world-wide coverage. It allows roaming on several carriers’ networks in every region, solving the problem of weak spots that any mobile network may have and ensuring full coverage and continuous connectivity even at remote locations.
A distributed core network with local breakouts, multiple network solution, and data server redundancy helps Webbing provide stable connection, high data throughput and low latency to all roaming devices. As such, Webbing’s IoT network is well suited to support mission-critical, high-data consumption type of use cases.
Our eSIM solution ensures 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 or deal with multiple SIM cards.
Our solution provides the ability to easily and securely connect any IoT devices. Webbing also offers a centralized way to manage eSIMs throughout their lifecycle via a portal. It allows for defining business rules that govern the automatic profile swap process, enabling devices to change the carrier independently in case of location change or connectivity loss, and provides visibility to profile usage and network events. This helps manage connected devices in bulks, easily scale global IoT deployments and monitor data usage of each device.
A flexible approach to data packages allows us to tailor our connectivity offering for every customer based on the type of connected devices and their data consumption needs as well as the locations where the devices are used, aiming at overall optimization of the total cost of operations for the client.
Our solutions help enterprises overcome their connectivity problems and optimize costs for global deployments, providing the benefits of roaming with multiple carrier options in every country, and seamless transition between carriers, while maintaining low rates and low latency on a global scale with a single SIM.
Reach out to discover how our tailored connectivity solutions can support your projects.
