Major mobile companies launch GSMA compliant solutions

“Our vision has always been to unite all stakeholders behind a single, common and global specification that will help accelerate the growing M2M market. It has also been our intention for the GSMA Embedded SIM specification to become the de facto industry standard,” said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. “Industry-wide adoption sets us on the path for the long-term growth and development of the industry and we welcome the news that the M2M community is ready to do business using the specification.”

The announcement confirms that the industry is moving towards a single, common and interoperable specification that will accelerate the M2M market, reducing fragmentation caused by proprietary solutions. An independent study by Beecham Research supports this, estimating that the immediate industry-wide adoption and deployment of the GSMA Embedded SIM Specification will deliver 34 per cent higher market growth by 2020.

The GSMA Embedded SIM Specification allows mobile network operators to provide scalable, reliable and secure connectivity for M2M connected devices that are often hermetically sealed, such as in the connected car or in smart meters. It also facilitates over-the-air operator provisioning and management, which provides service flexibility to end customers. The GSMA Embedded SIM Specification promotes a common global architecture that will reduce costs, drive efficiencies and further accelerate the rapidly growing M2M market, which is set to reach 244 million global connections this year, according to GSMA Intelligence.

A new independent report from Beecham Research titled, ‘Benefits Analysis of GSMA Embedded SIM Specification on the Mobile Enabled M2M Industry’, has highlighted that the immediate adoption and deployment of the GSMA Embedded SIM Specification will accelerate the growth of the embedded M2M market by up to 34 per cent by 2020. This will generate approximately US $8.9 billion in connectivity revenues for mobile operators in 2020 alone. Beecham Research estimates that the embedded M2M SIM connection market could reach 639 million connections globally – up from approximately 478 million by 2020 - if the GSMA technical specification is adopted as the de facto standard during 2014-15. Beecham Research anticipates that the automotive sector will be at the forefront of this growth with high adoption also in consumer electronics.

The GSMA has published Embedded SIM test specifications for remote provisioning solution providers that will give assurance that different embedded SIM remote provisioning systems functionally comply with the GSMA Embedded SIM technical specification. The GSMA has also launched a security accreditation scheme for remote provisioning subscription management service providers to ensure that the robust security and product integrity requirements are maintained.