New emerging devices beyond laptops and handsets will make up a significant amount of the endpoints on the mobile network as time goes on. And all of them will contain SIM cards, whether of the traditional form factor, or as an embedded SIM that is specially engineered to work in tougher environmental conditions common in industrial or M2M applications. While the technology is similar to that in the mobile phone, the distribution and provisioning model needed for new connected devices and business models is increasingly different.
Back in June 2009, at a Business Innovation Forum in Stockholm, Ericsson's vice president of systems architecture, Håkan Djuphammar, outlined his vision of billions of connected devices populating cellular networks within a decade. In his speech, he saw connectivity spreading to even the smallest household items.
"[In 10 years' time], everything has connectivity,” he said. “We're talking about 50 billion connections, all devices will have connectivity — your cameras, your everything. I'm not sure if you will have broadband in your toothbrush but maybe your dentist wants to know [how you brush your teeth] so why not? Connect everything.”
We may be some way off wirelessly connected toothbrushes, but there is no doubt that we are seeing accelerating usage of connected devices and this usage is helping to drive dynamic growth in the mobile broadband sector.
Key solutions in this connected device category include computing-centric laptops, notebooks and netbooks as well as mobile handsets, especially the new generation of smartphones like the iPhone, Droid and new Google Nexus One.
And research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics expects that other consumer electronics devices – including personal navigation devices (PNDs), personal media players (PMPs), game players, MP3 players, e-readers, digital picture frames, cameras and video recorders – will reach 11 percent of total active mobile broadband subscriptions by 2014.
And that explosion of new categories means provisioning and distribution models must change. Today, mobile operators are increasingly partnering with manufacturers of laptops, notebooks and netbooks to embed their cellular radios, incorporating SIM cards, into these devices and sell them through traditional computer retailers.
There is a growing recognition that a variety of system integrators, specialists and resellers are best placed to aggregate the kind of services that the mobile network can offer with their own consultancy, systems expertise and support, and deliver the whole. Some companies that enable these new distribution approaches and applications set themselves up as mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to have greater control over the devices and charging.
