How SGP.32 is Redefining Global IoT Strategy

A huge part of the commercial appeal of the Internet of Things (IoT) sector has always been its scalability.  The ability to deploy hundreds, thousands, or millions of devices without fundamentally changing the financial model or network architecture supporting them. 

That’s why the state of the industry over the last decade, fraught with operational, commercial, and regulatory friction, has been such a frustrating pain point for operators everywhere.  

For years, scalability has been constrained by a connectivity bottleneck, the root of which lies with physical SIM cards. 

While still the backbone of many mature IoT fleets and consumer devices, this legacy model is simply no longer viable for modern IoT due to its reliance on manual intervention and preset connectivity agreements.  

It was originally assumed that the popularization of embedded SIM (eSIM) tech would solve the slowdown on its own, but neither the hardware nor the GSMA’s initial specs of SGP.02 for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) or SGP.22 for Consumer devices were sufficient.    

SGP.02 M2M broke new ground with remote management, but perpetuated vendor lock-in. It required limited pre-negotiated integrations between operators, making it complex and costly for operators to switch connectivity providers.  

Conversely, SGP.22 Consumer offered an open, interoperable backend but was (by design) unsuited for IoT, being reliant on user intervention, such as direct device access or scanning a QR code, making it a non-starter for ‘headless’ devices like sensors or meters.    

Not only were IoT fleets limited in how they could connect, but where. Perhaps the most critical bottleneck was the standardization of regulations against permanent roaming connections. It became standard practice for a jurisdiction to mandate that devices using a foreign SIM must be disconnected after a set period, often for as little as 90 days.  

These combined choke points created a slowdown not only in individual deployments but adoption of the IoT paradigm as a whole, as scaling a fleet globally served to exponentially increase operational complexity and cost. Each new market introduced new carriers, new regulations, and different SIM profile configs, all leading to a proliferation of stock-keeping units (SKUs).  

SGP.32 was engineered specifically to break this bottleneck by decoupling device hardware from the terms of its connectivity.    

Understanding SGP.32 

The GSMA SGP.32 standard represents the ‘best of both’ for IoT operators, merging the most useful elements of the M2M and Consumer into a framework purpose-made for constrained IoT devices. This new spec provides the robust, server-driven management required for M2M deployments while incorporating the open, interoperable ecosystem that paying consumers expect, delivering a combination that’s both scalable and flexible.    

SGP.32 takes the streamlined remote management principles of the M2M standard and combines them with the Consumer’s Subscription Manager Data Preparation Plus (SM-DP+) functionality, the server-side components that securely prepare and deliver the subscription profile to an eSIM-enabled device. 

This fusion removes the vendor lock-in that hampered SGP.02 and the need for human intervention that made SGP.22 impractical for IoT, resulting in a single framework to manage headless, resource-constrained devices at a massive scale.    

eIM & IPA 

The key to SGP.32's effectiveness is its innovative architecture, which splits functionality into two distinct components: the eSIM IoT Remote Manager (eIM) and the IoT Profile Assistant (IPA). This specialization and separation enable remote, automated control over vast device fleets.    

The eSIM IoT Remote Manager (eIM) standardizes over-the-air device management, enabling centralized ‘single pane of glass’ control for all profile management operations. Through a secure, API-driven interface, an enterprise can issue commands to a fleet of millions, easily and simultaneously.    

The IoT Profile Assistant (IPA) is a compact parcel of on-board software that acts as an intermediary, receiving commands from the eIM and securely executing them on the eSIM chip. The IPA is designed to operate with minimal power and bandwidth and eliminates the need for direct user intervention.  

The eIM/IPA duo shifts IoT connectivity management from a device-centric ‘pull’ to a platform-centric ‘push’ model. While SGP.22 Consumer required a user to pull a profile from a server, SGP.32's eIM provides a universal ‘push’ engine, so an operator can now proactively make profile changes to an entire fleet in response to pricing fluctuations, performance issues, or regulatory changes.    

Modern and Lightweight 

At the forefront of almost every current major IoT development is the drive for greater operational efficiency. A crucial advancement in SGP.32 is its native support for modern, power-efficient communication protocols.  

Legacy M2M systems often relied on unwieldy SMS commands, which SGP.32 moves beyond with support for IP-based protocols like HTTPS and lightweight alternatives such as the Constrained Application Protocol over UDP (CoAP/UDP) and support for transport via protocols like MQTT. This ensures that even the most resource-constrained devices can be managed reliably and efficiently, minimizing data usage and power consumption.    

The Single SKU  

For Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the most immediate and measurable benefit of SGP.32 is the ability to design and produce a single, universal hardware version of a product for global distribution. The era of stocking dozens of distinct regional hardware variants, each with a specifically pre-programmed SIM card, is over. Instead, devices are produced with a default eSIM that can be remotely provisioned with a specific network profile from anywhere in the world.    

Zero Touch  

A central part of how the single SKU model is realized is through ‘zero touch’ provisioning. Almost all IoT devices are manufactured with a generic bootstrap profile, which, when powered up for the first time, will establish an initial connection and contact a designated eIM server.  

The eIM then identifies the device's location and, based on pre-defined rules and conditions, automatically pushes the right local Mobile Network Operator (MNO) profile to the device. The IPA receives and installs the new profile, making it fully operational. This entire process happens in seconds and without a human or physical SIM anywhere in sight.     

This streamlined automation translates directly into cost benefits, the most obvious of which is simplification of warehouse inventory, consolidating potentially dozens of SKUs into just one. Manufacturing processes are also streamlined, eliminating separate production runs and the logistics of distributing physical SIM cards, leading to direct cost savings, faster time-to-market, and with far fewer devices going obsolete on the shelf.     

Compliance and Resilience 

Beyond simply getting new devices onto the market faster, SGP.32 significantly improves the safety, reliability, and lifespan of existing fleets. It transforms connectivity from a static component into a strategic, software-defined layer that can be actively managed to mitigate risk, ensure compliance, and build resilience. 

Regulatory Compliance 

The prohibition on permanent roaming threw up more obstacles to global IoT deployments than just making regional connectivity awkward. It reduced the ability of a geographically mobile fleet to meet changing legal conditions. SGP.32 offers a direct solution by enabling the remote, over-the-air download of a local, compliant network profile.  

When a device is deployed in a country with specific restrictions, the eIM will automatically push an appropriate local carrier profile to it, satisfying regulatory requirements without needing to physically swap out or access the device. This transforms regulatory compliance from a static hardware-based challenge that would frequently make the best solution simply leaving a device to rot rather than incur legal penalties, and instead becomes a dynamic software-based solution that significantly improves operational lifespans.    

Redundancy and Failover 

Stable and essentially permanent uptime is critical for many of the most promising new IoT applications, from smart vehicles to cellular POS. SGP.32 enhances reliability by enabling automatic failover mechanisms, leveraging eSIMs’ ability to store multiple valid and active operator profiles simultaneously. This allows a device to be provisioned with a primary profile and numerous backups. If the device loses its connection, or even detects that the primary network is starting to stutter and fail, it’ll switch to a backup to ensure uninterrupted uptime.    

Network Sunsets 

Built-in resilience and redundancy are typically demonstrated in the context of failures and breakdowns, but they’re also an essential tool for future-proofing a long-term IoT investment against planned obsolescence.  

MNOs’ outlying markets are progressively phasing out older 2G and 3G networks, which is romantically referred to as ‘sunsetting’.  These shutdowns can effectively wipe out whole legacy fleets, requiring the physical replacement of millions of devices.   

As a network sunset approaches, an enterprise can use its eIM to seamlessly migrate the entire fleet to a newer network like LTE-M or NB-IoT via an over-the-air push, protecting the initial investment and ensuring devices remain operational throughout their full intended lifespan.    

Costs and Scale 

The SGP.32 standard enables many long-anticipated business models for large-scale IoT by radically improving Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). By enabling dynamic cost optimization and eliminating hidden operational overheads, SGP.32 opens up a wide range of significantly more financially sustainable and scalable applications. 

Dynamic Cost Optimization 

A primary cost benefit of SGP.32 is the ability to continuously optimize connectivity spend. Previously, businesses were locked into a single plan, but SGP.32 breaks this lock-in and allows dynamic profile switching to take advantage of favorable terms or better performance. This is especially beneficial in avoiding punitive roaming charges for mobile logistics assets. By eliminating the barrier to switching, SGP.32 introduces real, ongoing competition in quality and value rather than relying on customer inertia.    

Operational Overheads 

The true TCO of an IoT deployment will invariably include numerous incidentals beyond the ongoing data plan. SGP.32 is engineered to minimize costs, the most punishing of which is nearly always physical maintenance.  

It does this by expanding the capability to remotely provision, manage, and troubleshoot device connectivity issues. The eIM architecture manages IoT at scale, supporting bulk operations that allow administrators to apply patches and updates to potentially millions of devices with a single command. Combined with SGP.32's support for ultra-low-power design and OTA wake-up connectivity protocols, this lowers Capex and TCO below levels the sector has ever seen before.      

Next Steps 

The long-term value of SGP.32 is not as a final product but an adaptive platform, made to evolve with the telco landscape and emergent network tech. This makes it an essential component to maintain the pace and dynamism of the 5G-era IoT boom. The standard's ability to remotely provision new profiles means that as new network slices or 5G RedCap services become available, devices in the field are already positioned to take advantage of them.  

It also paves the way for transition to the next gen of SIM tech, such as the integrated SIM (iSIM), and working in concert with GSMA standards like SGP.41 and SGP.42.    

Ultimately, the adoption of a global standard like SGP.32 is benefiting the entire industry by fostering a more competitive and innovative digital ecosystem, driving down costs, and lowering the barrier for new entrants.