Agentic and generative AI applications and workloads are testing the limits of legacy connectivity infrastructure from edge to cloud. The explosion of data and telemetry that feeds underlying large and small language models across domains – for training and inference – necessitate a reimagination of cloud infrastructure and network architectures. Furthermore, as edge and cloud AI use cases proliferate to unlock enterprise and service provider transformation, there is a growing need for traditional IoT networks to keep pace by supporting higher performance, ubiquitous coverage, maximized uptime, and emerging data sovereignty requirements.
To address these challenges, floLIVE is on a mission to provide highly scalable and secure connectivity for intelligent IoT operations. The company makes a bold claim of offering the world’s largest cellular network for the Internet of Things (IoT), a network that is not hamstrung by the operational friction of cellular roaming that carries with it operational cost burdens and fractured coverage.
I want to unpack that concept, and the value that it delivers for organizations that manage large-scale IoT device fleets. I will also dive deeper into floLIVE’s architectural underpinnings, following my time spent with its leadership team in Tel Aviv earlier this year. With that context set, let’s dive in.
Connectivity matters
Compute is receiving the lion’s share of attention as it relates to modern AI, yet connectivity is often a second thought, especially in enterprise operational technology environments. floLIVE is addressing the need for higher availability, greater scale, speed, security, and data governance with a purpose-built IoT connectivity network.
Broadly speaking, the company optimizes its network for emerging edge AI use cases by integrating CDN-like capabilities to speed hybrid model updates, boost cloud AI performance dynamically, and simplify global access and data governance with local breakout and a single entry point. floLIVE is also leaning into AI for networking, deploying agents that are designed to bolster security, improve operational efficiency, and optimize cost.
Most impressively, the company is streaming real-time network telemetry into AI models to dramatically improve network assurance, fault remediation, and self-healing – something that the company refers to as “illumination.” In their Tel Aviv Innovation Centre, the floLIVE team walked me through its use of statistical models, deep learning, and AI agents that, in concert, identify anomalies with both devices and network-level behavior that triggers automated remediation. It is a compelling capability based on one billion IoT signaling events per day that floLIVE analyzes from around the world.
The floLIVE vision for a network beyond
The company’s long-term vision is to be a global AI data enabler and its mission is to empower mobile network operators, communication service providers, and global enterprises with a purpose-built IoT network platform to meet the age of modern AI and the resulting flood of data transmission. Its “Network Beyond” initiative is an audacious undertaking, one that is rooted in four pillars – Control and Compliance, Intelligence Inside the Network, Data Enrichment, and Local Behavior and Global Scale. Together, they comprise a seamless, secure, adaptive, and intelligent approach to facilitating IoT connectivity. By all measures, the company is delivering, providing a single platform to deploy, manage, and scale connectivity services, integrating security and compliance controls, adapting its wholly owned infrastructure to meet changing demands and global compliance requirements, and infusing intelligence into its technology stack to balance performance, reliability, and cost.
The concept of a hyperlocal global network is grounded in the floLIVE cloud-native, distributed core network architecture that incorporates local points of presence around the world. The company provides critical local breakout across continents, ensuring data sovereignty, high performance, and consistent behavior with a diversity of IoT devices. What I also find compelling is the platform’s ability to manage any cellular standard spanning 2G to 5G, and integration with burgeoning non-terrestrial networks that utilize low-Earth-orbit satellites for coverage gaps in less densely populated geographies. The value in consolidating so much functionality into a single platform is immense, especially for organizations that operate large scale IoT device fleets on a multinational basis.
Eliminating the friction of global roaming
Cellular roaming was originally created for human subscribers and mobile devices. Consequently, it creates friction within global, large-scale IoT network deployments. Many countries prohibit or limit longer term roaming. Unpredictable roaming fees erode service margins, while suboptimal backhaul deployments and inconsistent feature support can impact throughput and overall performance. Roaming also creates larger attack surfaces for bad actor exploitation, leading to a greater likelihood of compromise and data exfiltration.
floLIVE has solved these challenges through both its owned infrastructure and overcoming permanent roaming restrictions in more highly regulated countries. By utilizing a patented multi-IMSI over eSIM platform, it can dynamically switch devices to a native local profile ensuring both compliance and uninterrupted performance. Today, the company supports global connectivity through seventy packet data network gateways across twenty-three location hubs.
In addition, floLIVE understands the need for highly integrated security given the diverse nature of IoT devices and the massive threat surface tied to cellular networks. Data does not flow over the public internet, and the company deploys hardware security modules, network security detectors and anomaly detection algorithms to secure device authentication, advanced encryption techniques, and proactive threat detection to root out botnets and ransomware campaigns and defend against DDoS attacks.
Final thoughts
floLIVE may be one of the best kept secrets in connectivity, but that will change especially with growing momentum for edge AI and emerging IoT use cases. Its hyperlocal global network architecture is unique, and the continual optimization of its platform from edge to cloud has the potential to dramatically improve operational efficiency, security, cost optimization, and business outcomes using real-time network telemetry. floLIVE is reimagining connectivity for intelligent IoT operations, and the long term value is immense.
