The telecom industry understands the value of open standards. It is why the GSMA spent years developing SGP.32 – the new eSIM IoT specification designed to make cellular connectivity more flexible, portable, and scalable for connected devices.. Open standards create healthy competitive markets.
They allow customers to choose between vendors, encourage innovation, reduce dependency on any single supplier, and enable interoperability between products and services.. This is why open standards underpin much of the world’s communications infrastructure, from Ethernet and TCP/IP to Wi-Fi and the DNS system that makes the internet work..
But there is a problem.. An open standard does not automatically create an open ecosystem.. In fact, some of the biggest technology lock-ins of the last two decades have emerged inside standards-based markets..
Cloud computing was built on open Internet technologies, yet many organizations now struggle with cloud lock-in. Open APIs have not prevented platform dependency in areas ranging from social media to enterprise software. Even standards-based cybersecurity frameworks can fragment when different trust models emerge around the same underlying standard..
Cellular IoT now risks encountering a similar problem.. In theory, the promise of SGP.32 is straightforward. A fleet of connected devices should be able to change connectivity providers throughout their operational life without requiring physical intervention.
Connectivity becomes a flexible software decision rather than a one-time hardware decision.. For devices expected to remain in service for 10 to 15 years, that flexibility is not a luxury. It is essential..
The concern is that some implementations of SGP.32 are introducing new forms of operational and cryptographic lock-in that, while fully permissible within the current standard, may significantly reduce the freedom many customers assume the standard provides.. It is the difference between compatibility and interoperability.
Compatibility determines what a device can do today. Interoperability determines how much freedom its owner still has 10-15 years from now.. If left unaddressed, this issue could ultimately limit the growth potential of cellular IoT itself by constraining the flexibility that the industry spent years trying to create..
As an example, take a company that develops a product for North America or Europe today, but that may want to expand into Brazil, Indonesia, Africa, or any other emerging market tomorrow.. If its connectivity architecture cannot adapt to local coverage variations, commercial realities, regulatory requirements, or future network changes, expansion can quickly become difficult, expensive, or commercially unviable..
In parallel, the continued evolution of mobile networks, including the retirement of 2G and 3G, the eventual transition away from 4G, and shifting operator strategies around NB-IoT and LTE-M, all point to the same reality: no one can accurately predict the connectivity landscape 10 to 15 years from now. That makes preserving flexibility and freedom of choice more important than ever..
The issue is not whether today’s connectivity choice is right. The issue is whether anyone can know what the right connectivity choice will be in 10 to 15 years’ time.. And the answer is no.. – Getty Images.
Two types of lock-in. The first type of lock-in is operational.. While SGP.32 allows devices to switch among multiple eSIM IoT Remote Managers (eIMs), some implementations choose not to support this flexibility..
This is not a hypothetical concern. A recent GSMA market report (free to download with no sign-up) found that five of the eight publicly available eIM implementations currently support only a non-configurable model. In practice, this means a customer may be able to change connectivity providers within the original eIM ecosystem but cannot necessarily change the eIM itself..
That distinction is critical.. The original eIM effectively becomes the gatekeeper to every future connectivity decision. If a customer cannot change the eIM, they may be unable to access entirely new ecosystems of connectivity providers that become necessary over the lifetime of their devices..
For deployments expected to remain operational for 10 to 15 years, that creates a dependency many customers may not realize exists when selecting an eSIM IoT solution today.. The risk is not that a device stops working. The risk is that it cannot function reliably or remain commercially viable in a new market because of a technical decision made years earlier that locked the OEM into a restrictive connectivity ecosystem..
What should have been a straightforward software-level change instead becomes a costly and complex infrastructure – and potentially hardware – problem. In some cases, the economics may no longer stack up, resulting in delayed expansion plans or canceled rollouts altogether.. The second form of lock-in emerging in cellular IoT is cryptographic lock-in..
A growing debate within the industry concerns the use of self-signed certificates rather than GSMA-recognized trust frameworks. In these scenarios, devices may technically be SGP.32-compatible while remaining dependent on a predefined group of providers that recognize those credentials..
In both cases, the standard remains intact. But the flexibility customers assume it provides may be significantly reduced.. Because these constraints often sit deep within technical architectures and procurement decisions, many organizations may not discover them until years after deployment..
This creates an issue that extends far beyond eSIMs or the telecom industry.. Can an industry genuinely claim to have solved interoperability if customers remain unable to move freely between ecosystems over the lifetime of their infrastructure?. For deployments expected to remain operational for 10 to 15 years, that creates a dependency many customers may not realize exists when selecting an eSIM IoT solution today..
Compatibility is not interoperability. Compatibility and interoperability sound similar, but they are not the same thing.. A product can comply with a technical specification while still creating practical implementation barriers to movement between vendors, platforms, or ecosystems..
This is the problem the eSIM IoT market is now facing.. A solution can legitimately describe itself as SGP.32-compatible because it supports the functions defined by the standard – downloading profiles, switching profiles, and managing connectivity remotely.. But that doesn’t make it interoperable..
Interoperability is a higher bar. It means devices can move freely between different connectivity providers, eIM platforms, SIM vendors, and trust ecosystems throughout their operational life.. SGP.32 allows an eUICC – the SIM component that manages connectivity credentials – to be associated with multiple eSIM IoT Remote Managers (eIMs).
It also provides a framework for remotely managing eSIM profiles on IoT devices using mutually authenticated channels between the device and the provisioning platforms.. However, the standard does not require providers to implement these capabilities in an interoperable way.. As a result, devices may remain technically compatible with SGP.32 while being unable to move freely between eIMs, trust frameworks, or provider ecosystems..
That is the difference between compatibility and interoperability. One determines what a device can do today. The other determines what options remain available ten years from now..
After years of work, the GSMA should take the SGP.32 standard one final step further and make interoperability a requirement for full certification, rather than an expectation left for the market to deliver voluntarily.. – Getty Images. Infrastructure changes faster than devices.
One of the unique characteristics of IoT is the mismatch between device lifecycles and connectivity infrastructure lifecycles.. A connected industrial asset, utility meter, environmental sensor, payment terminal, tracking device, or smart city deployment may remain operational for decades..
The connectivity infrastructure surrounding it rarely remains static for that long.. No one expects to walk outside 10 or 15 years from now and find that cellular networks have disappeared. But no one can predict exactly how the market will change either.
Operators will merge. Regulations will shift. Coverage footprints will evolve.
Spectrum will be reallocated. New technologies will emerge. Others will disappear..
The telecommunications industry has already lived through multiple generations of network retirements, including the shutdown of 2G and 3G services across many regions.. More recently, operators have revised their strategies around cellular IoT technologies such as LTE-M and NB-IoT..
AT&T announced in November 2024 that it would fully decommission its US NB-IoT network, illustrating how quickly connectivity assumptions can change after products have already been designed and deployed.. For organizations operating thousands to millions of devices, these changes create significant business consequences..
If a preferred technology becomes unavailable, or if superior coverage becomes available through a different provider, businesses need the flexibility to adapt.. The same applies when products expand internationally. Connectivity architectures that work perfectly in Europe or North America may not align with network availability, commercial requirements, or regulatory conditions elsewhere..
When infrastructure evolves, optionality matters. And preserving optionality is arguably the entire purpose of eSIM IoT in the first place.. A question for the industry.
None of this suggests that the industry has taken a wrong turn. The progress achieved through eSIM IoT and SGP.32 represents years of collaboration and genuine innovation.. Nor is this fundamentally an argument about technology..
The challenge is governance, interoperability, and long-term infrastructure thinking.. Technology sectors repeatedly discover that openness requires more than technical standards. It also requires implementation choices that preserve portability, competition, and future flexibility..
That principle applies equally to connected devices. The question is no longer whether devices can connect. The question is whether the industry is building an ecosystem that will remain adaptable when today’s assumptions inevitably change.
Because they will.. The organizations that preserve flexibility will retain options. Those that do not may discover that an open standard is not always the same thing as an open ecosystem..
And by the time that distinction becomes visible, the infrastructure decisions that created it may already be impossible to reverse.. There is no more ubiquitous global connectivity network than cellular. The decisions being made around eSIM IoT today will influence how billions of connected devices are deployed, managed, and evolved over the coming decades..
This makes cellular IoT interoperability not simply a telecom issue, but a matter of global digital infrastructure.. More in Telecoms & 5G. 11 Jun 2026.
10 Jul 2026. 03 Jun 2026. More in Edge & IoT.
24 Apr 2026
