Comprehensive technical knowledge base covering 12 GSMA eSIM specifications. 84+ articles on Remote SIM Provisioning — SGP.02, SGP.22, SGP.32, SGP.41, SGP.29, SGP.23, SGP.25, SGP.26 and more.
Imagine… you have a huge fleet of delivery robots scattered across a city. You can’t run after each one to give it new instructions. Instead, you sit at a control centre with a big dashboard, send commands through the air, and each robot has a little translator inside that understands your orders and tells the robot’s brain what to do. That’s exactly how the IoT eSIM architecture works!
The eIM (eSIM IoT Remote Manager) is the boss. It lives in the cloud and:
Think of it like a mission control room for a space fleet: one room, many rockets! 🚀
The IPA (IoT Profile Assistant) lives on each device. It:
Two flavours exist:
Four special communication bridges connect everything:
The busiest bridge: connects the remote control centre to the device translator. Carries commands, profile downloads, and status reports.
A direct line from the control centre to the profile factory (SM-DP+). Used when the control centre handles profile downloads for devices that can’t reach the internet directly.
Lets the control centre check a message board (SM-DS) for waiting profiles on behalf of sleepy devices.
A logical, encrypted tunnel between the control centre and the chip. Commands travel through this tunnel with a digital signature proving they’re genuine.
Not all devices speak the same language! The system supports:
| Language | Use For |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | Smart gateways with full internet |
| CoAPS | Tiny sensors on battery-saving networks |
| MQTT | Devices on messaging platforms |
| Custom | Anything else! |
The IPAe variant lives inside the eSIM chip itself! That means even the tiniest, simplest sensor: one with barely any computer power: can still be remotely managed. The chip does all the thinking.