The telecom operators with IoT services are an essential part of ensuring stable performance in IoT communication architectures. In the telecommunications industry, very few companies actually own physical infrastructure. Most of the companies we know are strong commercial operators, but they rely on third-party infrastructure.
In the case of IoT solution deployment—machines, devices, and sensors capable of capturing and sending data—communication infrastructure is required, which is provided by telecom operators offering IoT-specific solutions.
Before identifying telecom operators with IoT services, it's essential to understand the most commonly used services in IoT solution deployment.
The NB-IoT technology is a type of telecommunications channel that uses very little bandwidth. It is based on the same technology as 4G-LTE but occupies only a narrow slice of this wide highway.
IoT sensors typically transmit data strings at varying frequencies, but the data is usually very lightweight. For this reason, Narrowband has become one of the most popular IoT services offered by telecom operators.
LTE-M is a connectivity service offered by telecom operators for the deployment of IoT solutions. LTE-M is an intermediate option in terms of data transmission capacity, offering higher throughput than NB-IoT. However, in terms of coverage, it has slightly less range than NB-IoT.
LTE-M connectivity services for IoT are very common in watch monitoring projects, POS systems for vending machine payments, and other devices that require secure and stable communication in environments where coverage is generally reliable.
The 4G services from telecom operators for IoT act like a wide highway through which all kinds of data can be transmitted, regardless of the size of the data packets. However, limited coverage availability is often a major constraint, along with high energy consumption.
When it comes to voice communication, video, and data packets that require high bandwidth, it is one of the most recommended services from telecom operators. However, its use in Agrotech IoT devices and similar types of equipment is not advisable due to network instability.
Telecom operators with IoT services offer special SIM cards or eSIMs for IoT, which are easily integrated into smart devices. Through this medium, communication can be established using any of the LTE network protocols, 4G, and similar technologies.
In recent years, for industrial solutions that require machine-to-machine communication with a certain level of precision, 5G services for IoT have been increasingly used. In these cases, telecom operators also offer services through programmatic integration with virtual SIMs (eSIMs), which allow for stable connectivity and precise transmission of large data packets.
IoT devices used for performing remote surgeries, for example, are some of the scenarios where IoT devices require specialized services from telecom operators.
The IoT platforms offered by telecom operators are useful interfaces for communication control and monitoring. They provide an intuitive layer for companies that need to manage and monitor in real time the performance of their IoT devices deployed in the field.
The widespread democratization of Industry 4.0—that is, the connected industry with machine-to-machine control and communication through IoT solutions—has led telecom operators to take seriously the development of offerings specifically designed for IoT communication architectures. These offerings typically include not only the means to connect to networks, but also their integration into proprietary control platforms, known as IoT platforms from telecom operators.
Just as there are telecom operators capable of creating highly specific commercial offerings by relying on third-party network infrastructure, there are also telecom operators with IoT solutions that do not own their own infrastructure. Instead, these operators have made an effort to thoroughly understand the communication needs of IoT. As a result, by using third-party telecommunications infrastructure, they have developed IoT communication offerings that are intuitive and tailored to the specific technological requirements of these types of projects.
As a key advantage, it alternates its communication capabilities across multiple networks, primarily using AT&T infrastructure as well as T-Mobile IoT networks, which allows them to maximize the IoT communication capabilities of their commercial offerings.
Another advantage of Soracom's IoT solutions lies in the great versatility and adaptability of its proprietary platform for controlling and monitoring IoT communications, making it especially suitable for startups.
Hologram is one of the most widely used alternatives for developing IoT solutions in the United States. In addition to leveraging and combining connectivity options from various telecom operators, it includes roaming capabilities, making it ideal for IoT product development that requires device-to-device communication regardless of geographic location.
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