Successful Interoperability Testing for GSMA Remote SIM Provisioning for M2M Provides Market Reassurance

The GSMA’s specification for Remote SIM Provisioning for M2M has been adopted by the majority of the world’s leading mobile network operators, with GSMA Intelligence estimating that over 75 per cent of global M2M connections are now serviced by mobile operators deployed or committed to the solution. It was designed to bring greater choice, simplicity and flexibility to manufacturers in how they connect M2M devices around the world. However, in order for the technology to become the de facto industry standard and to accelerate its wider adoption it is imperative that all products in the ecosystem are interoperable to assure customers that they are not locked in to any one connectivity or technology provider. Through this approach trust, confidence and longevity can be delivered to the market.
To resolve this issue the GSMA set up a dedicated programme focusing on three specific key areas:
Practical Trials: The GSMA worked with mobile operators including Cubic Telecom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone and key industry players including Comprion, Gemalto, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oberthur Technologies, Qualcomm Technologies, Safran Identity and Security, ST Microelectronics and Valid on a series of practical trials to demonstrate interoperability between different platform and device providers. These covered three specific technical areas: Profile interoperability, Platform interoperability and Subscription Management Server Swap. The trials confirmed the interoperability and flexibility of the specification to support M2M applications in the Internet of Things (IoT). This is important as it will provide market reassurance to customers investing in IoT solutions that they will function for many years in the field.

Conformance: The GSMA also created a dedicated quality assurance and conformance programme for individual Remote SIM Provisioning products. This reference resource helps to demonstrates that solutions will deliver a flexible, robust, secure and interoperable architecture for IoT. The conformance status of numerous vendor offerings is recorded publicly on the GSMA website.
Portability: The GSMA created a business interworking document called “Embedded SIM Portability” which defines common procedures to smooth the business steps necessary in swap scenarios between one operator framework and another. This common industry approach has been developed by Gemalto, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oberthur Technologies, Safran Identity and Security, ST Microelectronics, Telefonica and Vodafone. Procedures cover a profile swap and subscription manager swap scenarios.
A new version of the GSMA Embedded SIM Specification is scheduled for release in June 2017. For further information on the GSMA Remote SIM Provisioning Initiative please visit:  http://www.gsma.com/IoT/embedded-sim/. For further information on the Connected Living Programme, please visit: http://www.gsma.com/IoT/