Soracom brings connected car strategy into higher gear

Arguing that the enablement of connected car services for automakers is still missing the ability to be simple, secure and scalable, internet of things (IoT) connectivity services provider Soracom has announced its global strategy for the connected car industry that aims to address the connectivity and cloud management challenges faced in the journey to put more connected cars on the road.

Soracom said the connected car ecosystem has encountered roadblocks raised by the numerous backend processes and relationships automakers, dealerships, connectivity providers, and consumers must navigate to bring connected cars up to speed.

These challenges include the process of activating and managing SIM profiles on end devices; supporting flexibility in establishing and managing connectivity at the local level; ensuring end-to-end security; and efficiently integrating with connected car clouds to support the various features and infotainment content waiting to be unlocked.

The company’s strategy involves activating and managing SIM profiles on end devices; supporting flexibility in establishing and managing connectivity at a local level; ensuring end-to-end network and data security; and efficiently integrating with connected car clouds to support new capabilities and infotainment content.

Soracom expressed confidence that with experience supporting secure, cloud-native, global-scale cellular IoT connectivity, it can play an important role in helping the connected car ecosystem manage a simple, secure and scalable highway to the cloud.

The company also hopes to empower its automotive customers with the flexibility and freedom of choice to decide how they want to roll out connected car services.

“The connected car journey has been like a long family road trip, with the kids continually asking, ‘Are we there yet?’,” said Kenta Yasukawa, chief technology officer and co-founder of Soracom. “The good news is we are almost there – but for connected car services to succeed, the process of enabling them needs to be simple, secure and scalable – for automakers, for dealerships, for connectivity providers, and most of all, for consumers.

A key aim is to support the GSMA SGP.32 eSIM remote provisioning and management standard. Soracom noted that integrating an eSIM with SGP32 embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card (eUICC) into a vehicle modem makes it work as originally expected without what is said to be “complex” backend carrier integration.

The gains for automakers are said to be keeping secure, private connection to backend systems while gaining the flexibility to push eUICC profiles for infotainment and in-car Wi-Fi down to vehicles with their preferred carrier already in place. Alternatively, dealerships or connected car users can down-pull the carrier profile of their choice from the manufacturer’s cloud. In either case, said Soracom, the automotive manufacturer is relieved of a costly and laborious process.

Before SGP.32, even if each car was equipped with an eSIM and a modem, the automotive manufacturer had to work with a different connectivity provider in each country where its vehicles were sold and ask their primary carrier to integrate with their remote subscription management server to facilitate localisation of eSIMs, requiring time-consuming negotiations and a complex backend integration process with each carrier.

“This is hard enough to do with one carrier in one country, let alone with every carrier for every vehicle model and every model year in every country,” said Yasukawa.

“All the negotiations and backend integration required can take months to set up and years to manage. As a vehicle manufacturer or buyer, you should drive your own car’s connectivity, not be driven by a connectivity provider. With flexible SGP.32 eSIM provisioning and management, you are no longer captive to negotiating pre-market integrations with carriers that are difficult to change or update. Enabling connected cars is a team sport. Working together, we can build a simple, secure and scalable cloud highway for connected cars.”

The IoT eSIM standard is expected to be completed this year and available in products starting in 2025.