China Unicom, in cooperation with Telefonica, has introduced a service for remote management of embedded SIM subscriptions data based on the principles of the embedded SIM that is being developed by the GSMA and other collaborating international standards bodies and fora.
The service enables remote management of the subscription data of M2M embedded SIMs, including remote activation on demand, subscription transfer between different M2M devices, subscription replacement (for example, subscription swapping between China Unicom and Telefonica Spain, Telefonica UK, Telefonica Germany, and Telstra over the air).
The platform is expected to enable China Unicom, and Telefonica together with the new operator partners to provide embedded SIM services to M2M users. Secure profiles from MNOs can be downloaded to the embedded SIMs depending on business rules and needs in scenarios such as: equipment production lines, test facilities, commercial launching environments and post-sale of M2M products. Moreover, their profiles can be revised during the lifetime of the device. It will, among other things, allow swapping of MNOs to support scenarios like: specific roaming conditions, network changes and upgrade, service delete, and change of device ownership among other possibilities.
Main cornerstones of this trial are the subscription management enabled M2M embedded SIMs with remote management capabilities, a subscription management platform -hosted in a secure G&D environment – and an MNO specific portal developed for various operators (China Unicom, Telefonica, and Telstra).
