With over 14 million cases globally, COVID-19 has caused significant disruption, including delays to the physical rollouts and maintenance of IoT devices and networks owing to travel restrictions and lockdown measures in various countries.

The pandemic initially slowed the manufacturing, distribution and implementation of IoT projects, but also showed the need for the technology. IoT device adoption in supply chain operations will play a role in mitigating future disruption caused by the virus, as well as making processes more efficient to enable IoT rollouts to get back on track.

This article highlights that Covid-19 has driven the business case for accelerated cellular IoT, while examining how programable SIMs and new approaches to connectivity solve many of the ecosystem complexities prevalent today:

Covid-19 has clearly marked an inflection point for cellular IoT. As identified in our recent white paper in collaboration with Kaleido Intelligence, the complexity of cellular IoT has been greatly reduced by the GSMA’s standardization of the eSIM.