The biggest challenge faced by many of the IoT engineers is the network shutdown for their customer devices. Depending upon the project and number of devices connected, the network connectivity is hence manageable.
Will it be resolved? Yes.
There are two main tasks should be followed. The first one is to choose an alternate carrier (sim swap) basically but think of the time take to swap SIM for the plethora of devices. Just imagine for 1000s of devices! Another possible thing is to look for the best next technology, what if there is a national shutdown? The best thing to come up with is for the device swap and not the SIM swap.
Imagine you are engineering 1000s of devices and you want real-time data from them without time deviance, which is on locomotion continuously. What if your fixed network connectivity with the devices has trivial problems in connecting one of the carriers? For all these problems, there would be one solution and that is e-SIM!
What is e-SIM?
There is a misconception that says e-SIM is an electronic SIM as in e-commerce, e-book, e-business and so one, but e stands for “embedded” in this case. An eSIM is an embedded SIM card. The size of an eSIM (eUICC) is 4 times smaller than that of a physical nano-SIM.
The difference between the physical SIM and the eSIM is that a physical SIM has only one network carrier and also you should be having a cardholder in a device to fix that. The information of the physical SIM is not rewritable. The eSIM is more opposite of that, it is fixed inside the device (soldered) on the motherboard and the information rewritable.
eSIM cards use the same tech and run on the same GSM networks that normal SIMs use. switching or setting it up might even be easier. You don’t have to wait for a new SIM to be delivered to your house; it could all happen instantly with just a quick phone call.
eSIM and the Internet of Things
Gartner estimates that by 2020, the number of connected devices in existence will reach 20.4bn, and by 2025 it could be as high as 82bn. In fact, it’s been reported that by 2024, some analysts believe the IoT market will be worth up to £6 trillion in investments. A key player in this growth is the emergence of eSIM technology and is poised to have a dramatic impact in 2019.
If the customer devices use the eSIM, all the devices are connected globally and the engineers are able to manage them efficiently. In order to certain security measurements, the company should be considering connectivity management as one of their key roles. The devices should keep on check with their thresholds and abnormal behavior.
Benefits of the eSIM
The main advantage of the eSIM is the attempt to neglect the dual Simcard practice in the device. Also, it leads to the neglect of the choice of the carrier. It is extremely smaller than the currently available physical SIM. This paves the way for the extra space for the other components.
Cons of eSIM
The main downside to an eSIM is that it’s less convenient when you’re switching phones. You can’t simply remove the SIM card from one device and pop it into another. It also makes it more difficult to test for problems with your device. At the moment, when you have connection or signal problems an easy test is to stick your SIM into a different phone to check if the problem is with your network or your device. You wouldn’t be able to do that with an eSIM.
Conclusion
Down the line, If you’re designing your own hardware, you might want to consider it! The smaller size, fewer components and less susceptibility to mechanical de-lodging (though not common) make the eSIM a great fit for many applications.
