International roaming hasn’t disappeared—but it’s no longer the default answer for global IoT. According to the Kaleido Intelligence report, The Connectivity Revolution: What Every IoT Leader Must Prepare For, only some two-to-three percent of IoT network providers still view a global roaming SIM as the “best” way to achieve global IoT connectivity. While roaming continues to play an important role, it is clear that the industry recognizes it cannot meet all requirements on its own. Leaders are increasingly combining roaming with local or regional breakouts and programmable SIM approaches (multi-IMSI and eSIM with SGP.32) to deliver both performance and regulatory compliance.
Operators have long struggled with IoT roaming cost structures that were built around voice-centric services and don’t map well to today’s data-driven IoT models. While adoption of alternative technologies, including programmable SIM, eSIM, and new standards like SGP.32, has historically been slow, there is now strong growth among many international operators looking to satisfy the business needs of enterprise customers that expect stable pricing, regulatory compliance, and deterministic performance across borders. To stay relevant, MNOs are embracing these technologies to ensure that they can deliver the control, resilience, and value their customers demand.
In its report, Kaleido notes that, “Roaming remains a key element of supporting IoT connectivity, but there is an industrywide recognition that it cannot solve all customer requirements.”
Meeting customer needs
As technology and service providers, we have an obligation to guide our customers toward the best-fit technologies for their business needs. While roaming still has its place in certain environments, there are compelling reasons to adopt multi-IMSI with local packet gateways and to leverage SGP.32 for eSIM provisioning and management.
According to the Kaleido report, some 60% of MNOs and non-MNOs have implemented or are in the process of implementing SGP.32. Respondents cited greater flexibility, reduced lock-in, and better coverage as the primary benefits—with 75 percent of MNOs expecting improved coverage outcomes. This reflects a clear industry shift in which many service providers are embracing SIM flexibility, intelligent network connection services, and remote management orchestration, not only to meet customer expectations, but also to enhance their own profitability.
Where roaming still makes sense – Coverage and resilience within a country or region
One of the key advantages of roaming in IoT is the ability to switch between multiple MNOs within a single country or region to provide resiliency in the event of a network outage or poor coverage in specific areas. For use cases with critical uptime requirements, this multi-network redundancy is a strong argument for maintaining a roaming capability as part of the connectivity strategy.
Facilitating flexibility and resilience
However, as the complex regulatory landscape demands more than reliable uptime performance, providers and users must comply with data sovereignty and privacy requirements that can only be served through local breakout capabilities. Such localized services not only apply to the single country model, they also flexibly address global regulatory mandates when devices roam beyond the home network.
For global IoT operations, such as monitoring materials in transit, supporting video surveillance, or remote management of industrial processes, roaming is being superseded by solutions offering lower costs and better flexibility, deterministic performance, and control that is only offered by localized programmable SIM and multi-IMSI solutions. With these new levels of control and flexibility, roaming is evolving from being a blunt global tool into a smart, regionally optimized component of a broader connectivity model.
The use of localized multi-IMSI SIMs with onboard intelligence and remote management capabilities widens the performance advantages in comparison to traditional roaming SIMs as well. The programmatic capacity to automatically connect and register in a manner similar to a local device, on two or more networks without operator or user action, is a gamechanger for global IoT operation. This is particularly valuable for applications such as in-transit video surveillance and delay-sensitive industrial applications. Network resilience and network infrastructure redundancy are mandatory regardless of the inevitable outage or poor coverage areas encountered when tied to a single network. This approach addresses these challenges.
Why roaming alone can’t power the future of IoT
Kaleido—and many other marketplace participants—are not dismissing the roaming SIM. But it is fair to say that the applications for roaming as a solitary solution are becoming rarer as intelligent SIM and network capabilities continue to develop and successfully satisfy the evolving needs of a growing IoT landscape.
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