When it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT), it’s all about trust and the GSMA believes it has found a secure partner in Verizon, which will provide a public key infrastructure (PKI) for the GSMA’s Remote SIM Provisioning ecosystem. The deal applies across both the GSMA’s M2M and Consumer devices ecosystem.
Verizon will deliver certificate-based authentication services to mobile operators and service providers that want to be part of the GSMA’s Remote SIM Provisioning ecosystem, providing an extra layer of protection to the eUICC and giving market reassurance to customers investing in Remote SIM Provisioning solutions as the IoT develops.
Verizon’s solution will provide help with the following, according to the GSMA:
- Application protection: an “over-the-top” (OTT) layer of security to help secure devices and apps, regardless of provider.
- Trusted authentication: ability to give select individuals and/or devices access to apps or devices.
- Data privacy: Help entities keep their data secure through encryption.
The GSMA says its chain of trust helps deliver a common, consistent and more secure approach to security and helps ensure that various system entities can all be trusted by each other within the GSMA Remote SIM Provisioning architecture. Verizon’s IoT Security Credentialing, in particular, reduces security threats and enables developers to secure single points of vulnerability to protect devices and applications. Verizon is also a recognized PKI infrastructure provider.
The GSMA says its Remote SIM Provisioning Specification for M2M has been adopted by the majority of the world’s leading mobile network operators. It was designed to bring greater choice, simplicity and flexibility to manufacturers in how they connect M2M devices around the world. A new version of the GSMA Embedded SIM Specification is scheduled for release in June 2017.
Last week, Verizon launched the first commercial nationwide LTE-M network in the United States, covering 2.4 million square miles.
LTE-M solutions require less power, offer extended battery life and support various use cases ranging from water meters, asset trackers to consumer devices. Other operators also plan to launch LTE-M this year, including AT&T in the U.S., KDDI and NTT DoCoMo in Japan, KPN in the Netherlands, Telefonica in Europe, Telstra in Australia, Telus in Canada and Orange.