Transatel Supports GSMA’s Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning Initiative¹

While already providing a global solution for consumer electronics devices in the form of a universal SIM card (SIM 901), Transatel is keen to support the new industry standard for the reprogrammable SIM dedicated to consumer electronics.

The GSMA released last week an industry-backed specification for Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning². As a member of the GSMA, Transatel is part of the taskforce helping define industry standards for an e-SIM dedicated to consumer electronics. Transatel actually launched its own service in November 2014, SIM 901 (www.transatel-901.com). This service already offers the functionalities expected by manufacturers, helping them add mobile subscription to their devices and ensuring seamless global cellular data connectivity. However, Transatel also strongly believes in promoting the GSMA initiative, which will make the technology available to all. It will also bring fluidity to the market of connected devices, where local regulatory issues often hinder global business opportunities.

An opportunity for the consumer electronics market

Projections for data usage in the coming years is expected to grow exponentially. Worldwide, consumers currently use around 3.7 exabytes a month. This number should increase almost tenfold in less than five years³. Future winners in the consumer electronics arena will be those corporations that will have anticipated the trend by adding connectivity to their devices, namely with an embedded SIM card, freeing the end-user from a dependency on Wi-Fi. This is easier said than done, when one knows how complex manufacturing processes are—the product is assembled in one location, and distributed in another, with no prior knowledge of the final destination. Hence the need for a connectivity service spanning the globe, agnostic to the type or size of the device, network, SIM format, or preferred usage.

‘No strings attached’ on a global scale

Few services of this nature have been developed by service providers in recent years, and even fewer have the advantage of a single global platform from which to manage such functionalities as split billing, provisioning or intensified data security. Transatel benefits from this single infrastructure, which explains that its SIM 901 was chosen to provide connectivity in selected Windows 10 devices. Its mobile services are global and virtualized, and adaptable to IoT and Machine-to-Machine requirements.

‘Jump in – jump out’ – a recipe for healthier market conditions

Remote SIM provisioning means first and foremost that the end-user is free to choose a provider, thereby spurring competition and offering opportunities for “niche” propositions. While Transatel offers this capacity to the market, it is eager to engage in the competition itself, by promoting an industry standard for the eUICC?, within the authority of the GSMA.
Jacques Bonifay, Transatel CEO confides: “Flexibility for manufacturer and end-user is a mantra in our company. It’s the way of the future, what we’ve been developing for the past fifteen years, and is what I’m relentlessly defending on behalf of the organizations I preside (MVNO Europe? and Alternative Mobile?. Competition cannot be applied to all but oneself…. We are confident we have the best solution available today, but the only way to stay on top is to invite competition—what better motivation is there?”

About Transatel
For the past 15 years, Transatel has been offering, through a technical platform and associated services, a solution helping a diversity of players meet their market for mobile telephony and data connectivity. The company is positioned either as an enabler of mobile services in a BtoB context (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler), acting as third party and adapting to multiple business models, or as a mobile operator (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) with a BtoC retail activity.
Transatel’s 5 areas of expertise (MVNO, MVNE/A, Machine-to-Machine, embedded connectivity, and multi-local data connectivity) cover the extent of possible airtime offerings, currently delivering connectivity to over 1.7M SIM cards.
With 70% of its revenues generated abroad, the 160-strong company is established in France, the UK, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States.

1 eUICC: embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card

2 http://mvnoeurope.eu/ – MVNO Europe was created in 2012 to represent the interests of Mobile Virtual Network Operators that are active on European mobile markets, and have negotiated wholesale access to the networks of host Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

3 http://www.alternative-mobile.com/ Alternative Mobile promotes MVNOs’ common interests facing the State or regulatory authorities, with a view to help a healthy competitive environment emerge in mobile telephony, in the interests of consumers and enterprises.

4 According to CISCO VNI Mobile 2016, we should reach 30.6 EB in 2020.

5 http://gsma.com/remoteSIMProvisioning

6 The GSMA, industry association which founded the GSM standard, represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators, with more than 250 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem. The Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning Initiative is the project consisting in the definition of an industry standard for an e-SIM dedicated to consumer electronics.

PRESS CONTACTS (A+ Conseils)

Christelle ALAMICHEL
christelle@aplusconseils.com
+33 (0)1 47 27 00 14
+33 (0)6 31 09 03 83

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