Global IoT connectivity must prove it can scale reliably

Cellular IoT has crossed an important threshold. By the end of 2025, the industry reached 1 billion cellular low power wide area IoT connections. That is a major milestone in global IoT connectivity. Yet the most important point is not the number itself. It is what that number now demands from the market. IoT has proved it can scale. It is now whether that scale can work in the real world, across borders, networks and long device lifecycles.

At least this was the dominant theme at the IoT Summit at MWC26 Barcelona. In 2026, the industry has entered yet a more complex stage of the IoT. Now, the harder task is to make global IoT connectivity simpler, more resilient and easier to manage. Devices need to be deployed once, activated flexibly, updated remotely and kept secure for years. They also need to keep working as they move across countries, operators and coverage environments. In other words, the next phase of IoT is less about adding connections and more about removing friction.

As Jens Olejak, Head of Satellite IoT at Deutsche Telekom, explained: “Technology is no longer the bottleneck. I would say consistency, clarity, and collaboration are.” The industry already has strong technical foundations. What it needs now is a more workable operating model for global deployment.

Scale depends on consistency

For years, the market focused on whether IoT devices could connect. That question has largely been answered. The more urgent question now is whether they can behave consistently across many different environments. A device may work well on one network, then perform poorly on another. It may drain power too quickly, fail to switch correctly, or require costly intervention after deployment. These are not theoretical problems, they are practical barriers to scale.

Olejak described this as the “quiet foundation” of IoT. Companies deploy devices across different countries and networks, yet often expect uniform behaviour. In practice, that does not always happen. As a result, the GSMA IoT community has focused on more practical guidance, including deployment maps, reference materials and clearer network information. The aim is not to invent technology for its own sake. It is to remove obstacles that stop companies deploying at scale.

Once IoT becomes part of supply chains, factories, cities and energy systems, inconsistency becomes a business risk. The summit therefore pointed to a more mature model for the market. The job now is not only to connect devices, but also to make them predictable, supportable and commercially viable over time.

The software-defined vehicle is an example for other industries to follow

Automotive stands out as the clearest example of where the market is heading. BeeGek Lim, Global Head of Business Line Digital Offering at Giesecke+Devrient, argued that “devices must be born connected.” That phrase reflects the new baseline for IoT deployment. Connectivity can no longer be an optional add-on. It has to be present from manufacture, then carried through shipping, activation and long-term operation.

Lim also made the wider relevance clear. Automotive brings together many of the same challenges found across industrial IoT, logistics, infrastructure and energy. Devices must support global rollout, long lifecycles, strict safety requirements and changing connectivity conditions. They may start in a factory on private connectivity, then move onto public networks during shipping, then rely on hybrid coverage in the field. That is why the connected vehicle now looks less like a niche use case and more like a model for the next generation of IoT deployment.

Brandon Blumber, Global Director of Business Development at Rivian, summarised this neatly. With SGP.32, he said, a vehicle could be given “a passport that needs no visa.” The point was not rhetorical. It expressed the commercial goal very clearly. Global IoT connectivity should not depend on repeated SIM changes, fragmented local contracts or manual fixes. It should travel far more cleanly across markets and operators.

SGP.32 is important, but it is not enough on its own

The summit gave a lot of attention to SGP.32, and rightly so. It is designed to support IoT use cases with more flexible and secure provisioning over long device lifetimes. Yet one of the strongest parts of the event was its realism. Several speakers made clear that SGP.32 is necessary, but not sufficient on its own.

Eva Rudin, Vice President of Mobile Connectivity Solutions at Thales, stated this most clearly. “SGP 32… is a foundation. But its foundation is not enough on its own.” She argued that many of the real problems do not come from one component in isolation. “The problems appear in the gaps” between eSIM makers, device makers, operators and management platforms. That is a useful correction to any overly simple standards narrative. A specification can help. But scale still depends on orchestration, interoperability and lifecycle visibility. For example, large IoT fleets need more than remote provisioning. They need oversight, control and recoverability. Without that, complexity simply moves elsewhere. This is why the summit repeatedly treated global IoT connectivity as an ecosystem problem, not just a network one.

Hybrid connectivity is becoming a practical requirement

The summit also showed that non-terrestrial networks (NTN) are moving into a more serious role. Satellite is increasingly being positioned as an extension of cellular coverage rather than a separate silo. This development is reassuring for the wider market because enterprise does not want separate connectivity silos. They want continuous service across more geographies and use cases.

Olejak summed it up well: “Our customers don’t ask for satellite connectivity. They ask for connectivity.” That line explains why hybrid models are gaining traction. The goal is not to sell satellite for its own sake. The goal is to remove white spots and improve resilience where terrestrial coverage alone is not enough.
The use cases discussed at the summit made that case tangible. Panels highlighted utilities, farming, maritime environments and remote monitoring as obvious examples. Sam Colley, Senior Product Strategist at Giesecke+Devrient pointed to utility deployments in underserved areas and livestock water monitoring as situations where hybrid connectivity could solve real operational problems.

Still, those at the summit did not pretend all the hard work is finished. Switching back from satellite to terrestrial remains a challenge. Commercial models are still evolving. Certification and device design still need attention. Yet the direction is now clearer. Hybrid coverage is moving from a fringe topic to a practical requirement for global IoT connectivity.

RedCap points to the next middle ground for global IoT connectivity

The summit’s discussion of RedCap and eRedCap was also important because it addressed a quieter but significant gap in the technology roadmap. Low-power IoT technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M serve many applications well. Full 5G New Radio (5G NR), by contrast, can be too complex, power-hungry or expensive for many use cases. That leaves a middle tier that needs a more sustainable path forward.

Olejak called RedCap and eRedCap “the missing middle.” He argued that LTE cannot be assumed as the long-term answer for new deployments, while full 5G remains excessive for many mid-tiers use cases. The industry therefore needs a future-proof option that balances performance, efficiency and longevity. That is where RedCap enters the picture.

Nicolas Damour Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships at Semtech, reinforced the wider sense of forward motion. Reflecting on the 1 billion device milestone, he argued that the next decade may deliver far more growth still, as connected devices and processes become more deeply tied to broader digital transformation. Seen in that context, RedCap is not just another acronym. It is part of the effort to keep IoT commercially and technically viable as deployments become more ambitious.

Global IoT connectivity requires operational maturity

The strongest conclusion from the summit is also the simplest. Cellular IoT has reached scale. Now it must prove that scale can become durable. Devices need to connect across networks, adapt across lifecycles and remain secure over many years. They also need to fit into a less fragmented commercial and technical model than the industry has often offered so far.

That is why the summit kept returning to simplification, resilience and collaboration. These are now the hard requirements for growth. The future of global IoT connectivity will depend less on whether devices can connect at all, and more on whether connectivity can become seamless enough, interoperable enough and manageable enough to disappear into the background of the services it enables.

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