Report: AT&T and Gemalto Team on IoT Lifecycle Management

Telecommunications firms including AT&T, Verizon and KPN in Netherlands (pictured) are working to build out infrastructure to support connected devices.

In-brief: AT&T is partnering with Gemalto to offer lifecycle management features for Internet of Things devices, as the telecommunications giant targets automotive telematics, infotainment, and smart safety services.

Some interesting partnership news on the Internet of Things and security front: AT&T announced that it is teaming up with security and identity firm Gemalto to provide remote subscription management capabilities for IoT applications.

The companies announced on Tuesday that AT&T will support Gemalto’s LinqUS On-Demand Connectivity (ODC) subscription management solution and Embedded SIMs (eSIMs). Together, the technologies provide life cycle support for connected devices.

AT&T said the Gemalto technology will “simplify the logistics of providing mobile services for Enterprises requiring global mobile connectivity for IoT applications.”

Gemalto’s technology has mostly been used to support mobile phone deployments, but the company sees the Internet of Things as a huge new market. The LinqUS ODC is used for a variety of purposes, including onboarding of new devices when they first connect to a cellular network, device activation and removal. It can also be used by third-party service providers to enable subscription based mobile services.

The partnership with Gemalto will help AT&T it expand its offerings of connected services to include automotive telematics, infotainment, and smart safety solutions, according to Chris Penrose, President, of Internet of Things Solutions at AT&T.

Larger carriers like AT&T and Verizon dominate the smart phone market in North America and elsewhere. But the Internet of Things presents both opportunities and challenges to that dominance. On the one hand, there will be more connected endpoints like cars, consumer appliances, and cameras requiring software updates, quality of service (Q0S) guarantees and secure communications. That represents a huge, potential market. The AT&T and Gemalto partnership speaks to that.

On the other hand, low power and infrequently connected IoT endpoints aren’t well suited to deployment on bandwidth, power-hungry and (relatively) expensive 3G and 4G networks. In recent years, challengers have emerged to serve that later market, including firms like SigFox and Senet the space targeting that market with lower cost, low power wide area networking options. Verizon recently soft announced the availability of limited LTE CAT-M low power network that would serve IoT devices (though the markets it will be available in are still a “secret”). Gemalto is a player in that market. AT&T is piloting CAT-M in San Francisco, as well.

Read the announcement from AT&T and Gemalto here: IoT news – AT&T strengthens Internet of Things (IoT) offerings with Gemalto’s remote subscription management solution

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