Pelion Research Signals a Shift Toward Borderless Enterprise IoT Connectivity
Enterprise IoT deployments are crossing borders faster than the tools to manage them. A survey of 676 IoT decision-makers commissioned by Pelion and ABI Research finds that internationally connected devices will make up 49 percent of enterprise fleets by 2030, up from 29 percent today. The data, released this week, paints a picture of an industry where operational complexity has overtaken network coverage as the primary scaling headache.
For years the standard playbook was simple: pick a domestic carrier, roll out devices, and manage connectivity through a single dashboard. That model is fracturing as supply chains, logistics networks, and industrial operations go global. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said managing deployments outside their primary coverage area is now their biggest challenge — more than those citing network gaps, budget constraints, or hardware shortages.
The expertise gap nobody talks about
The survey uncovered a quieter crisis: six out of ten organizations say a shortage of internal IoT knowledge is the single biggest obstacle to successful deployments. That ranks ahead of both connectivity costs and security concerns. As fleets spread across multiple countries, the skills required to work with different regulatory environments, spectrum rules, and carrier relationships multiply.
"Connectivity itself is no longer the difficult part of enterprise IoT," said Pelion CEO Dave Weidner. "The challenge comes when enterprise customers take their fleets internationally, grow in scale, and operate across multiple networks, jurisdictions and regulatory environments."
The skills deficit shows up in procurement cycles too. Organizations without dedicated IoT architects tend to underestimate the integration effort by a wide margin. A deployment that looks straightforward in a pilot lab — fifty sensors on one factory floor — becomes a different beast when replicated across twelve facilities in eight countries, each with its own data residency requirements, spectrum allocations, and carrier certification processes. Engineers who excel at sensor fusion and edge analytics often lack experience with the telecom side of the stack: APN configuration, roaming agreements, and the arcane world of GSMA compliance.
eSIM adoption accelerates
The report points to IoT-specific eSIM technology as the primary mechanism for taming that complexity. SGP.32-compliant profile downloads — the GSMA specification designed for IoT — are projected to reach 45 percent of deployments by 2030, up from 7.6 percent today. The shift reflects demand for technology that can swap operator profiles over the air without truck rolls or physical SIM swaps.
That capability matters most when a logistics container moves from a port in Rotterdam to a rail yard in Chicago to a warehouse in Singapore. Each leg traditionally required a local carrier agreement and a SIM change. eSIM lets the device download the right profile automatically when it detects a new network.
The economic argument for eSIM strengthens at scale. A single truck roll to swap a SIM card can cost between $50 and $200 depending on geography. Multiply that by thousands of assets moving across borders monthly, and the operational expenditure dwarfs the hardware cost. Remote profile management also reduces the mean time to resolution when a device loses connectivity — a critical metric for cold-chain monitoring where a connectivity gap can mean a total loss of perishable goods.
ABI Research analyst Michael Larner noted that the SGP.32 standard solves a long-standing interoperability problem. Earlier eUICC implementations varied by vendor, creating lock-in. The IoT-specific profile ensures that a module from one manufacturer can accept a profile from any compliant subscription management platform, giving enterprises genuine freedom to switch connectivity providers without hardware changes.
Security incidents carry real costs
Security remains a tangible barrier. Nearly one-quarter of organizations surveyed reported an IoT-related security incident in the past year. Among those affected, almost one-third incurred losses exceeding $100,000, and a smaller share reported costs above $1 million. As deployments become international, security architecture is becoming a purchasing criterion alongside connectivity performance and fleet management.
The threat surface expands with geography. A device that operates only on a private APN in Germany faces a different risk profile than one that roams onto public networks in Brazil, India, or Vietnam. Attackers increasingly target the management interfaces of cellular modules and the over-the-air update channels that eSIM enables. The report notes that organizations with mature security postures tend to mandate hardware root of trust, mutual TLS for all device-to-cloud communication, and certificate-based authentication rather than shared secrets.
Regulatory pressure is compounding the security challenge. The EU Cyber Resilience Act, which takes full effect in 2027, will require manufacturers to provide security updates for the expected lifetime of connected products and to report actively exploited vulnerabilities within 24 hours. For enterprises deploying fleets across the EU and beyond, compliance means building update pipelines that work across every carrier network and every module vendor in the fleet.
The MVNO opportunity
More than three-quarters of respondents not currently using a mobile virtual network operator said they would consider one for future deployments. They cited greater flexibility, simplified management, and access to multiple carrier networks as key advantages. The trend suggests the next wave of enterprise IoT growth will be characterized by globally managed, eSIM-enabled deployments rather than a patchwork of bilateral carrier agreements.
MVNOs that specialize in IoT — such as 1NCE, Soracom, and Pelion itself — offer a single contract, a single invoice, and a single management portal covering dozens of underlying carrier networks. That abstraction layer is exactly what the survey respondents are asking for. The trade-off is margin: MVNOs add a markup on top of wholesale carrier rates. For enterprises running millions of connections, that markup can exceed the cost of maintaining direct carrier relationships in-house. The decision often comes down to whether the organization has the headcount to manage those relationships.
Some large enterprises are taking a hybrid approach. They maintain direct agreements with tier-one carriers in their top three markets and use an MVNO for the long tail of countries where volumes are too low to justify dedicated procurement. That model preserves negotiating strength where it matters most while offloading the operational burden of managing dozens of smaller carrier relationships.
What the next five years look like
If the survey projections hold, the enterprise IoT environment of 2030 will look markedly different from today. Borderless fleets managed through eSIM platforms, secured by zero-trust architectures, and operated by a new class of connectivity specialists. The winners will be the organizations that treat connectivity as a product capability rather than a utility bill — investing in the expertise, tooling, and partnerships to make global deployment routine instead of heroic.
The full Pelion-ABI Research report is available at IoT Business News.
For more on how connectivity trends shape the IoT sector, see our IoT coverage.