If you have ever come across the IMS-WebRTC integration, you know how much pain is caused, just by the fact that a web-browser is not equipped with a SIM card. With HTML5 every browser can become a terminal. But with IoT practically any device can be plugged in a big global network. So how to make sure that each such a device has all the information it needs in order to securely connect and get its services?
eUICC
One possibility is a SIM card. Although it might be an overkill for simple applications, for many it can be interesting as a quite proven and also reasonable secure option. Of course, we talk about the Embedded UICC (eUICC) for machine-to-machine devices. Already in the beginning of 2014 T-Mobile USA announced an e-SIM for M2M communications. A few days ago we got a new GSMA version of Remote Provisioning Architecture for Embedded UICC.
Anyway in my view we are just a half way through. The eUICC is still a physical device. So the it can’t be used for virtual m2m agents or the already mentioned WebRTC. And imagine that for some reason we have to replace all eUICC modules in our whole m2m solution… That’s why I’m still waiting for a so-called Soft SIM, which GSMA defines as:
A ‘Soft SIM’ would be a collection of software applications and data that perform all of the functionality of a SIM card but does not reside in any kind of secure data storage. Instead, it would be stored in the memory and processor of the communications device itself (i.e. there would be no SIM hardware layer).
Real Time Communication 