Scale Your IoT Deployment with Soracom Global Connectivity
Soracom provides global IoT connectivity and a cloud-native platform for startups and enterprises, offering flexible cellular data and advanced network management.
Overview
Soracom is a leading global provider of smart connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). Founded in 2014 by a team of cloud infrastructure experts, the company was established to bridge the gap between traditional telecommunications and modern cloud computing. Soracom provides a cloud-native IoT connectivity platform that enables businesses to deploy, manage, and scale IoT applications with unprecedented ease and flexibility.
The company serves a diverse range of industries, including manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, healthcare, and smart cities. Its client base spans from high-growth startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, all of whom rely on Soracom to manage the data flow between their edge devices and the cloud.
Soracom’s core offering centers on its global cellular connectivity, delivered through physical SIM cards and eSIMs. However, the true value of the platform lies in its integrated suite of value-added services. These services address the most common pain points in IoT development: security, power consumption, protocol management, and network integration. By moving these functions from the device hardware to the network layer, Soracom allows developers to build more efficient and secure IoT solutions.
Headquartered in Tokyo with a significant global presence in the US and Europe, Soracom has grown into a major player in the IoT ecosystem. The company has established strategic partnerships with major cloud providers like AWS and has been recognized by industry analysts for its innovative approach to software-defined networking in the IoT space. Their focus remains on providing "connectivity as a service," allowing organizations to focus on their core product innovation rather than the complexities of global network infrastructure.
Positioning
Soracom positions itself as the "Cloud-Native IoT Connectivity" leader, strategically placing itself at the intersection of Telecommunications and Cloud Computing. While traditional carriers compete primarily on data pricing and coverage maps, Soracom differentiates its brand through software intelligence and developer experience.
Their positioning strategy is built on three pillars:
- Agility and Scalability: Soracom targets the "modern builder" who requires the ability to start small and scale infinitely without renegotiating contracts. They position themselves as the antithesis of the "Big Telecom" experience, emphasizing self-service, transparency, and speed to market.
- Security-by-Design: A major component of their messaging focuses on "private-by-default" networking. By positioning their platform as a secure bridge that keeps IoT traffic off the public internet, they appeal to enterprise CISO and security teams who are often wary of the vulnerabilities inherent in IoT deployments.
- The "Power of the Platform": Soracom moves the conversation beyond the SIM card. Their messaging emphasizes that the network is an extension of the cloud. They position their value-added services (like protocol conversion and cloud integration) as essential tools for reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and improving device longevity.
In the competitive landscape, Soracom sits between low-cost "dumb pipe" providers and high-end industrial IoT integrators. They successfully capture the middle ground by offering enterprise-grade sophistication with the accessibility and pricing model of a SaaS company.
Differentiation
Soracom’s product suite is built on a unique "cloud-native" architecture that abstracts the complexity of traditional cellular networking. While most providers simply sell SIM cards, Soracom provides a sophisticated software layer that sits on top of the connection.
Key technical differentiators include:
- Soracom Beam & Funnel: These services offload the heavy lifting of encryption and protocol conversion from the IoT device to the Soracom cloud. This extends device battery life and reduces data usage by allowing devices to transmit data via lightweight protocols (like UDP or MQTT) while the platform handles secure TLS encryption to the final destination.
- Soracom Canal & Door: These networking features allow customers to create private VPC peering or VPN connections between their IoT devices and their cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud), ensuring data never touches the public internet.
- Unified Management Console: A single pane of glass provides real-time control over an entire global fleet. Users can pause, resume, or throttle individual SIMs instantly via a web console or a robust API.
- Multi-Carrier Global Coverage: Through their global IoT SIM and eSIM technology, Soracom provides access to over 350 carriers across 170+ countries, with intelligent failover capabilities to ensure maximum uptime.
- Krypton: This unique provisioning service allows for secure, automated device onboarding and credential management, simplifying the deployment of large-scale IoT fleets without manual configuration.
Ideal Customer Profile
The ideal Soracom customer typically fits the following profile:
- Company Size: Ranges from fast-growing IoT startups to Fortune 500 enterprises with global supply chains.
- Industry: Strong presence in logistics, smart cities, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing.
- Technical Maturity: High. The platform is built for developers and engineers who want to use APIs and cloud-native tools rather than manual, representative-led carrier management.
- Scale: Companies planning to deploy anywhere from 50 to 500,000+ devices.
- Geographic Reach: Organizations that need "borderless" connectivity where devices move between countries or are sold into multiple international markets.
- Budget: Organizations that value operational efficiency and security over the absolute lowest "commodity" data price; those who understand that "cheap" data often leads to high integration and maintenance costs.
Best Fit
Soracom excels in the following scenarios:
- Global IoT Deployments: When a company needs to deploy devices across multiple countries but wants to manage them through a single pane of glass with a unified SIM (eSIM/iSIM) that automatically attaches to the best local carrier.
- Security-Conscious Applications: For organizations that require devices to communicate over private networking (VPC peering) rather than the public internet, reducing the attack surface of edge hardware.
- Resource-Constrained Devices: When using low-power devices that need to minimize battery consumption; Soracom’s protocol conversion (e.g., UDP/CoAP to HTTP/JSON) offloads heavy processing to the cloud.
- Rapid Prototyping to Scale: Startups or innovation labs that need to start with one SIM and scale to one million without changing their underlying network architecture or switching providers.
Offerings
Soracom offers a modular suite of products categorized by function:
- Connectivity (Soracom Air): The core cellular service providing SIM cards, eSIMs, and iSIMs with global multi-carrier coverage.
- Networking (Soracom Canal, Door, Direct): Services that provide private connections to the cloud, including VPC peering, VPNs, and leased lines.
- Security (Soracom Endorse, Gate): Tools for device identity management and creating virtual private LANs for devices to communicate with each other.
- Data Optimization (Soracom Beam, Funnel, Funk): Services that transform protocols, inject data directly into cloud functions (like AWS Lambda), and reduce device-side processing.
- Storage & Visualization (Soracom Harvest, Lagoon): Built-in data logging and dashboarding tools for quick prototyping and operational monitoring without external databases.
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Introduction
Welcome to the Buyer’s Guide for Soracom, a leading provider of smart cellular connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT). As organizations move away from traditional, rigid telecommunications models, Soracom offers a cloud-native approach to global connectivity. This guide is designed to help IT decision-makers, product managers, and IoT architects understand how Soracom’s programmable network services can simplify device management, enhance security, and scale deployments across 160+ countries. You will learn about the platform’s unique "cloud-side" networking features, its flexible pricing structure, and the specific technical requirements needed to leverage its full potential. Whether you are launching a fleet of micromobility scooters or monitoring industrial assets in remote locations, this guide provides the framework to determine if Soracom is the right partner for your IoT journey.
Key Features
Soracom’s platform is built on several core pillars that provide value beyond simple data transmission:
- Programmable Connectivity: Manage your entire SIM fleet via a web console or API. You can programmatically start, stop, or throttle data based on business logic.
- Advanced Networking & Security:
- Soracom Canal: Provides private peering to your VPC, keeping IoT traffic off the public internet.
- Soracom Endorse: Provides device authentication and credential management without storing sensitive keys on the device.
- Protocol & Data Management:
- Soracom Beam: Offloads encryption (TLS) from the device to the network, saving battery and data.
- Soracom Orbit: Allows WebAssembly (Wasm) modules to process and transform data in-flight before it reaches your server.
- Unified Global Coverage: A single "SoraSim" provides access to multiple carriers per country, ensuring maximum uptime and simplified logistics with one SKU for global shipping.
- Visualization & Logging: Soracom Harvest provides built-in data visualization and storage, allowing you to see device data immediately without setting up a backend.
Use Cases
- Smart Agriculture: A manufacturer of soil moisture sensors uses Soracom's NB-IoT connectivity to transmit data from remote farms. By using Soracom Beam, they offload TLS encryption, extending the device battery life from 1 year to 3 years.
- Connected Health: A medical device company uses Soracom Canal to create a private tunnel between patient monitors and their HIPAA-compliant AWS VPC. This ensures patient data never touches the public internet.
- Micromobility: An e-scooter fleet operator uses Soracom’s global SIM to deploy the same hardware in London, Paris, and Berlin. They use the Soracom API to automatically deactivate scooters that haven't been rented in 48 hours to save on subscription costs.
- Industrial Asset Tracking: A logistics firm tracks high-value containers globally. They use Soracom's multi-carrier coverage to ensure that if one carrier has a blind spot in a port, the SIM automatically switches to an alternative provider.
Pricing Models
Soracom utilizes a "pay-as-you-go" model designed to align costs with actual usage:
- SIM Cost: A one-time upfront fee for the physical SIM card or eSIM profile.
- Subscription Fee: A low daily or monthly "basic fee" per active SIM to keep the line open.
- Data Usage: Charged per megabyte, often tiered by zone (e.g., Zone 1 for primary markets, Zone 2 for roaming).
- Platform Services: Optional services (like Canal for VPN or Beam for encryption) are typically billed per SIM or per volume of data processed.
- No Long-term Contracts: Unlike traditional carriers, Soracom generally does not require multi-year commitments, allowing users to scale up or down without penalties.
- Volume Discounts: Enterprise-level pricing is available for large-scale deployments exceeding thousands of units.
Technical Requirements
To utilize Soracom effectively, the following technical specifications must be met:
- Modem Compatibility: Devices must use cellular modems (LTE-M, NB-IoT, 3G, or 4G/LTE) that support the frequency bands of the target country.
- APN Configuration: Devices must be capable of having their Access Point Name (APN) set to
soracom.io. - Form Factor: Support for Standard, Micro, or Nano SIM slots, or MFF2 for embedded eSIMs.
- Cloud Environment: While not strictly required, the platform is optimized for users with existing infrastructure in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Network Protocols: Support for standard IP-based protocols. For low-power optimization, support for UDP or CoAP is recommended to take advantage of Soracom’s protocol converters.
Business Requirements
To successfully implement Soracom, organizations should consider the following:
- IoT Strategy Alignment: Clear definition of data frequency, payload size, and power constraints to choose the right connectivity plan.
- Hardware Selection: Devices must be compatible with the cellular bands in the target deployment regions and support physical SIM, eSIM, or iSIM form factors.
- Technical Skillset: A team familiar with cloud architecture (AWS/Azure/GCP) and basic networking concepts (IP addresses, APNs, and VPNs) is required to configure advanced routing.
- Operational Readiness: A plan for lifecycle management, including how devices will be provisioned in the factory versus activated in the field.
- Stakeholder Buy-in: Collaboration between IT/Security (for network integration) and Product/Operations (for device deployment) is essential.
Implementation Timeline
The implementation timeline for Soracom is typically much faster than traditional telco agreements:
- Discovery & Testing (Weeks 1-2): Purchase a starter kit, register SIMs in the user console, and verify connectivity with local towers.
- Architecture Design (Weeks 2-4): Define networking requirements (e.g., Soracom Canal for VPC peering or Soracom Door for VPN) and configure cloud integration.
- Pilot Phase (Weeks 4-8): Deploy 10-50 units in the field to monitor data consumption, signal strength, and power management.
- Full Deployment (Month 3+): Mass provisioning of SIMs/eSIMs and integration into automated manufacturing or fulfillment workflows.
- Optimization (Ongoing): Using Soracom Harvest and Orbit to refine data usage and reduce costs based on real-world performance.
Support Options
Soracom offers several tiers of support to meet different business needs:
- Basic Support: Included for all users, providing access to extensive online documentation, community forums, and a ticketing system for billing and general inquiries.
- Priority Support: A paid tier offering faster response times and direct access to IoT solutions engineers for technical troubleshooting.
- Professional Services: For complex deployments, Soracom offers consulting services to help with network architecture design, hardware selection, and custom integration.
- Developer Experience: Soracom is known for its "developer-first" approach, providing comprehensive SDKs, CLI tools, and a "User Sandbox" for testing without incurring live data charges.
- Global Ecosystem: Access to a partner network of hardware manufacturers and system integrators.
Integration Requirements
Soracom provides deep integration capabilities designed for cloud-native environments:
- Cloud Adapters (Soracom Funnel): Direct, authenticated injection of data into AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub, and Google Cloud IoT Core.
- Private Networking: Support for AWS VPC Peering (Canal), IPsec VPN (Door), and dedicated direct lines (Direct).
- API-First Design: A robust RESTful API allows for programmatic management of SIM states (activate/suspend), limit setting, and billing.
- Webhooks: Trigger external actions based on network events, such as a device going offline or exceeding a data threshold.
- Protocol Conversion: Ability to convert lightweight protocols like MQTT, UDP, or CoAP into standard HTTPS requests for easy cloud consumption.
Security & Compliance
Security is a core differentiator for Soracom, moving protection from the device to the network layer:
- Private IP Addressing: Devices are not assigned public IPs by default, making them invisible to internet-based scanners and botnets.
- Encryption Offloading: Soracom Beam handles heavy encryption tasks, ensuring data is encrypted from the cell tower to the cloud.
- Closed-Loop Networking: Capability to create a completely private network from the device to the customer's data center or VPC.
- Compliance: Soracom maintains high standards for data privacy and is used in highly regulated industries. They provide tools to help customers meet GDPR and other regional data residency requirements through localized data breakout points.
- Access Management: Granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for the Soracom Console ensures only authorized personnel can manage the SIM fleet.
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