The Bridge Alliance, an association of mobile telcos in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa has announced a collaboration with two its members — China Unicom and Singtel — to streamline eSIM deployment for IoT in China and Singapore.
The agreement will enable enterprise customers of both companies to perform eSIM changes over-the-air without having to manually configure their devices’ SIM cards to change networks in either China or Singapore.
The alliance said the collaboration leveraged it strategic IoT partnership with China Unicom and paved the way for Singtel to play a key role in facilitating cross-border IoT connectivity across China and Singapore.
Bridge Alliance CEO, Ms Ong Geok Chwee, said the agreement would help Chinese companies accelerate IoT deployment in Southeast Asia, simplify business negotiations through Bridge Alliance’s framework agreement, and bring market advantages across the region for Chinese companies.
Singtel vice president, enterprise mobility product & platform Dennis Wong, said the collaboration would help drive more seamless connectivity and broader IoT adoption, augment Singtel’s IoT ecosystem of partners, enhance its ability to support China Unicom’s and other Chinese enterprises’ rollout of IoT devices in Singapore and the region.
“By leveraging our extensive, secure IoT connectivity services, enterprises can have greater control over mission-critical operations in real-time and increase business productivity,” he said.
Automated eSIM profile swapping
Under the collaboration, devices which are equipped with China Unicom eSIMs will automatically switch their profiles to Singtel’s when they are brought into Singapore. The devices’ embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC) will also download and activate Singtel’s profiles through a GSMA-compliant subscription manager platform.
The alliance says the collaboration is the first between two members/partners and follows a successful eSIM swap trial in early April 2020 where China Unicom managed to swap its eSIM profiles to Singtel’s using Bridge Alliance’s technical and commercial capabilities.
“With more IoT devices being built with eSIMs and cross-border eSIM swap collaborations being arranged, switching cellular networks abroad becomes easier,” it said.
“This enables enterprises operating across the Asia Pacific region to enjoy local data SIM rates rather than being charged roaming rates, making it more cost effective to roll out IoT across the region.”
Bridge Alliance IoT achievements
Back in 2015 the alliance announced plans to deploy the Ericsson Device Connectivity Platform multi-domestic solution for IoT to enable any OEM, enterprise or service provider to deploy IoT solutions across multiple countries.
In 2018 the alliance’s Regional IoT Connectivity Management won the Most Innovative IoT Solution at the 2018 Asia Communication Awards and in 2019 was named one of the top 10 IoT solution providers by APAC technology magazine CIOoutlook.
