Carrier services company BICS is providing private-to-public network roaming for enterprises installing private 5G networks from Microsoft. BICS said the pair have “collaborated to solve the challenges” of IoT roaming between private enterprise networks and public operator networks. The Belgium-based firm is providing roaming SIMs and a management platform for “partners building solutions with” Microsoft’s private MEC offer in its Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft has its own cellular core network proposition for private network installations, via its Metaswitch and Affirmed Networks businesses, which serve enterprises and operators, respectively. Its private MEC deal combines compute, networking, and application services from the enterprise-edge, via the network-edge, to the cloud-edge; management takes place in Azure. It is nominally targeted at operator and integrator channels, serving enterprises. .
Somewhat curiously, a couple of years back, the prospect of private-to-public network roaming was dismissed as a niche application, as enterprises put initial focus on strict on-site data retention, at the enterprise edge. But it has become a key proposition for private LTE and 5G vendors and integrators, as the market has developed with the broader IoT sector. The eSIM proposition from BICS allows IoT devices to move “seamlessly” between, it said.
It called it “another critical step” – following industry work to extend cellular IoT networks, stimulate the cellular IoT device ecosystem, and solve the uneasy issue of cellular IoT pricing – to make “IoT truly open and global”. It noted: “Enterprises… are implementing use cases that require global connectivity when devices leave their facilities or support select devices on public networks with more reliable private connectivity on-site.”
It cited use cases in asset tracking and workforce connectivity. The company’s MVNO airtime offer for IoT roaming offer, like others’, which relies on backend tie-ups with international operators, negates the need for device makers or enterprise users to strike different operator agreements around the world. They can also avoid network ‘lock-in’, noted BICS; as well as initial SIM provisioning, its management platform also offers control over rates and policies.
Divya Ghai Wakankar, vice president of enterprise business and marketing at BICS, said: “It is unrealistic to expect even the most tech-savvy enterprises to be experts in telco, and yet this has become the expectation [with] IoT roaming. What this collaboration achieves is to ultimately provide private networks [with] a global SIM/eSIM and a platform that handles all the complexities, from network roaming through to SIM provisioning, [in] one solution”
Shriraj Gaglani, vice president of product development at Microsoft, said: “Simplifying roaming via capable SIM management platforms that are easy to consume by enterprises is a growing requirement. Microsoft Azure private MEC offers easy, scalable deployment of edge compute and private 5G networks to simplify the path for enterprises to deploy modern connected applications. Together with BICS we’re giving our customers access to ready-to-go SIMs in any format needed to support use cases that leverage both private and public networks.”
