In November 2024, Transforma Insights unveiled its 2025 IoT ‘Transition Topics’, a set of key themes that would significantly influence the market landscape during the year. One of those Transition Topics related to ‘eSIM orchestration vs connectivity reseller’, which was defined as follows:
“The imminent arrival of the SGP.32 ‘IoT’ standard for remote SIM provisioning in 2025 promises to trigger a new phase in the provision of IoT connectivity and in the associated roles. Specifically, we expect to see the role of IoT connectivity provider (MNO/MVNO) fragment into three main roles: network operator, reseller, and a new role of eSIM Orchestrator, handling profile management and potentially integrating with a role of single-pane-of-glass (SPOG) connectivity abstraction platform.”
In this Position Paper, we explore the triggers for the emergence of that eSO role, the market landscape that will emerge as a result, and the functionality that might be delivered by such a platform.
The first section examines briefly the arrival of SGP.32 and the functions that were created, as well as looking at a series of other key trends in the cellular IoT connectivity landscape that are also influencing the changing market dynamics relating to how global cellular-based connectivity is delivered. This includes regulatory requirements for more localisation, evolution in middleware, and changing approaches from MNOs and MVNOs to how they address the market. Subsequent to that, a section explores what the resulting IoT connectivity landscape will look like and who the different players will be.
The later sections then go on to provide a list of the functions that we might expect to be performed by the eSO, from the most fundamental of managing eSIM profiles, through to some more complex and holistic elements such as billing management, customer support and compliance, that would mark out the kind of managed solution we expect to be most appropriate for most enterprise customers. Stemming from that we include a section of questions that an enterprise might want to ask when considering who to use to provide its eSIM orchestration.
