Early March saw the annual pilgrimage to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. For the author it was his twentieth visit to the event. It’s really the only not-to-be-missed conference in the calendar, such is its importance. The opportunity to spend four days (or more) locked in darkened meeting rooms discussing all things IoT connectivity offers an unrivalled opportunity to test hypotheses, triangulate views, and pick up gossip. As ever I want to offer my perspectives on what I thought were the key news and themes from the show.
I should add two caveats. First, I make no excuses for this mostly being about cellular-based connectivity and associated topics. I’ve had comments on previous years’ equivalent blog posts that I’ve over-stressed issues related to mobile networks. It’s Mobile World Congress. So it’s hardly surprising there was more discussion of 5G and eSIM than of Unified Namespace or Manufacturing Execution Systems. Second, there’s always a risk that it ends up being a kind of personal echo chamber. Are the topics that bubble to the surface during discussions really the hot trends, or are they the thing that I happened to want to focus on? Hard to tell.
The perfect illustration of the self-fulfilling discussion topic was edge AI. It’s a major research area for us at Transforma Insights this year. The impact of AI on IoT featured as two of our ‘Transition Topics’, i.e. the key themes that will define IoT in 2025. And just prior to MWC we published a key report on AIoT platforms.
With increasingly powerful AI libraries and increasingly easy programmability (using natural language), the use of AI is becoming more democratised. Also there’s no doubt a push to put the inferencing as close to where the data originates as possible. Hence the increasingly widespread interest in edge AI. That was my top theme going into the event that I wanted to discuss.
And I was delighted that I wasn’t met with (too many) blank stares when I raised the topic. Plenty of others are thinking along the same lines. There’s excellent work being done by the likes of NTT DATA and Telefonica on specific use cases. And Qualcomm is increasingly making a big play in that space. The most interesting news on that score was actually Qualcomm’s announcement of the acquisition of Edge Impulse, which doesn’t count as MWC news as it happened the following week at Embedded World, but who’s being pedantic?
On the Sunday night before the event we again ran our MWC IoT CEO dinner, for the CEOs and BU leaders from the biggest cellular IoT connectivity providers in the world, including the likes of AT&T, Cubic Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Emnify, Orange, Teal, Telenor Connexion, Verizon, and Vodafone. A big thank you to all those who attended (and to Emnify for again sponsoring the event).
What was particularly gratifying to see at MWC overall was a set of very interesting announcements from those companies about how to streamline the delivery of IoT connectivity. Mostly these weren’t technical topics, but more about collaboration and optimisation.
The single biggest piece of news in my particular domain of IoT was the announcement by AT&T of the launch of Global SIM Advanced in collaboration with Eseye. This extension to its existing Global SIM makes use of Eseye’s AnyNet eSIM and Infinity CMP (rebadged as Integra for MNOs) for localisation globally.
In part this is a reflection of the increasing diversification of middleware from MNOs to better address different parts of the market (see also AT&T’s tie up with Simetric for SPOG). Great news for Eseye, which will be pursuing other MNO opportunities. And a useful addition for AT&T, particularly for tackling out-of-footprint.
This is also reflecting, I think, the trend we’re seeing of the IoT MVNO space somewhat bifurcating into companies that resell connectivity and those that handle eSIM orchestration as more of a SaaS play. I’ve commented on this, including in this blog post in November: ‘SGP.32, regulation, and new dynamics in IoT middleware will trigger a shift in IoT connectivity’. More to come on this topic from us soon.
One of the other things I predicted as a result of the increasing importance of remote SIM provisioning/eSIM/localisation was greater collaboration between operators. And lo and behold, Verizon has expanded its Global IoT Orchestration grouping with the addition of Singtel. And Skylo, but I’ll come onto that in a moment. I don’t think there’s much surprise about the choice of partner, with Singtel occupying a strong position as the bridge (pardon the pun) into Asia.
Another interesting announcement was DT IoT’s Make Everything Cellular Connected (MECC) offering, aka Smart Standby, which provides hardware OEMs the ability to install a SIM in devices in production and then activate the cellular connectivity (and pay the associated fees) if they choose, or not if they don’t. It uses the cheap and low power nuSIM technology for which DT is about the only advocate. If you want to know more about nuSIM, check out our report which covers it: ‘Technical and commercial dynamics of eSIM, iSIM and Remote SIM Provisioning continue to evolve’.
It was also notable that the key theme of the 5G IoT Summit, in which I participated on Wednesday morning at the show, was delivery rather than technology. Good to hear.
And this even permeated into discussions at the IoT Stars event on Tuesday night. That’s an event that is at the more techie end of the IoT spectrum, I’m sure they won’t mind me saying. But in the panel I moderated at the event, on IoT connectivity, it was notable that the main focus of all the panellists was on delivery, much as I might have tried to get them to geek out on new tech. That’s IoT today, I guess.
A couple of areas where there was still ongoing discussion were eSIM (particularly SGP.32) and NTN satellite. Quite a lot of discussion. But not that much that has really changed in the last 12 months.
With the absolute finalisation of SGP.32 still several months away, it’s basically ‘as you were’. It’s a significant change for the cellular IoT connectivity space. Or will be once it’s actually here. But nothing has dramatically changed in the interim, although there were a few announcements, such as Cubic working with Thales for SGP.32. And I should give a nod to Teal for its OpenEIM platform (announced at CES) and Onomondo for its eSIM IoT Alliance initiative (from earlier in 2024) as some innovative thinking about what to do with SGP.32 once it’s actually here.
For more on how we see it changing the landscape, check out our recent blog post ‘SGP.32: a key IoT theme in 2024’ (although the way things are going, I could probably just change it to “2025” and republish the same time this year).
On the satellite side of things, NTN (and particularly direct-to-device) was again a hot topic, possibly the most talked about thing at the show. It’s the D2D piece which has actually changed quite dramatically in the last year, with some significant announcements. But on the IoT side, it’s more a case of continued gearing up to support rather than actual execution at this point. We saw a bunch of announcements, including the aforementioned Verizon/Skylo, but also Monogoto/Terrestar, G+D/Skylo and Deutsche Telekom with Sateliot and OQ.
Interestingly a political element is maybe creeping in. Is it a coincidence that we’re seeing a bit more interest in (European headquartered) Sateliot and OQ versus the perennial favourite Skylo? I think not. OQ recently secured EU funding as, I’m sure, an attempt to ensure that there’s a ‘domestic’ option.
The other satellite discussion topic, and one not without a political dimension, was about what precisely Starlink would be able to deliver as an IoT offering with its V2 constellation. It’s certainly by no means a guaranteed winner.
And on the subject of the political, it’s hard to understate the continuing importance of regulatory factors in IoT. We at Transforma Insights have discussed this theme at length in many places, for instance in this blog post: ‘Why is regulatory compliance the number one issue for IoT in 2024?’. In the context of discussions at MWC, the most interesting related to the increasing requirement for connectivity providers and their associated platform vendors to meet requirements for localisation of connectivity and data management, for instance to ensure compliance with the NIS2 directive in Europe.
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