T-Mobile announced eSIM, a first-of-its-kind approach to international wireless machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. With this announcement, T-Mobile eliminates roaming costs for M2M communication in the U.S. and Canada giving its customers local data rates when located in each respective country.
The M2M market, also referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), is exploding. ABI Research estimates that the number of independently connected wireless devices will grow from 10 billion in 2013 to 30 billion by 2020 with ever more powerful and ubiquitous cellular networks contributing to that growth.
"T-Mobile is uniquely situated to take a leadership position in the M2M market. We have the network, capacity and organizational nimbleness needed by companies bringing M2M products to market," said Drew Kelton, executive vice president, T-Mobile Business Markets. "With eSIM, we’re showing how we’re different than our competitors. We’re bringing Un-carrier to the M2M space by doing what T-Mobile always does: putting our focus on the customer first through simplicity, transparency and cost."
How does it work?
T-Mobile is making it easy for innovative companies to embrace the M2M revolution. T-Mobile M2M enables always-on connectivity for products and services through T-Mobile’s nationwide network and international partners. Companies can build eSIM into an assortment of connected product categories including connected car and navigation, mobile health and wearables, among others. Think of a cloud-connected smart watch or fitness band that’s no longer restrained by borders.
"The Internet of Things knows no boundaries… or at least it shouldn’t have to," said Rusty Lhamon, director of M2M, T-Mobile. "This unique approach to cross-border wireless communication is designed to eliminate the issue of permanent M2M roaming and makes connectivity seamless and simple."
The potential cost-savings of eSIM are enormous. Consider a trucking company that travels frequently between the U.S. and Canada as an example. Between mapping services, video monitoring, email, fleet tracking software and vehicle diagnostics, a single truck might easily use 100MB of data per month while traveling in Canada. The roaming cost for that single truck alone could be as much as $200 per month or nearly $2,400 per year.
eSIM is available for businesses in the connected device market to integrate into their M2M solutions. eSIM ships fully configured out-of-the-box for use with multiple international carriers and can be easily pre-built into virtually any connected product -- simplifying inventory management, removing the need for SIM swapping and best of all providing local data rates.
T-Mobile will continue to announce additional countries of support throughout 2014.
