The IoT market continues to scale exponentially, with over 8 billion connected devices worldwide—and growing. For IoT telecom service providers, this expansion marks a pivotal moment to move up the IoT value chain. No longer limited to providing connectivity alone, operators can unlock new monetization opportunities by enabling platform-based services, enterprise IoT applications, and full ecosystem integration.
As IoT connectivity providers, telecom operators play an important role in the digital transformation of several industry verticals. But with the future of IoT technologies like NB-IoT and 5G, operators are now coerced to transform their business models and expand their operations from simply providing connectivity to enabling platform-based services and enterprise applications.
From Connectivity to Enablement: How Telcos Are Evolving in the IoT Value Chain
The era of pure connectivity is fading fast. Today, mobile operators generate only 5–10% of IoT revenues from connectivity alone. To capture the remaining 90%—which lies in platforms, services, and applications—operators must adopt new roles across the IoT ecosystem.
Sure, connectivity is the backbone of the current IoT wave. Still, with increasing competition in the space, the total revenue generated by connectivity only amounts to approximately one-tenth of the global IoT market revenues and is set to decline further to five percent (GSMA Intelligence). Mobile operators today are focused on transforming their business models, empowering themselves to be an essential part of the IoT value chain to address the remaining ninety-five percent of the market opportunity created by IoT platforms, services, and applications. Operators are now adapting to new roles to add value to the broader IoT ecosystem.
Key Capabilities for Building a Scalable IoT Foundation
Telecom service providers are well poised to help build the global IoT market, with the experience and capabilities to deliver carrier-grade networks that meet compliance requirements and governance demands across a global range of regulatory schemes. Operators have a first movers’ advantage in building the IoT opportunity to provide IoT connectivity and IoT service management, creating a bedrock of operator IoT services.
To sustain growth in IoT connectivity, operators should focus on a scalable solution for service expansion from domestic to global markets and developing early alliances and partnerships with other operators and enterprises for worldwide coverage and support. Airlinq’s Intelligent Connectivity Management platform helps operators unleash IoT’s full potential by reducing the complexity of connection life-cycle management and limiting administrative burden via a unified platform.
To become full-service enablers, operators must leverage their core network assets to offer global compliance, connectivity orchestration, and scalable deployment.
Airlinq’s Intelligent Connectivity Management platform delivers seamless control over the device lifecycle while reducing operational complexity through automation.
How Service Enablement Accelerates Monetization
Applications and IoT services makes up the most of the global revenue generated in the IoT market. Telecom service providers should identify IoT verticals with high value opportunities and develop new capabilities in the targeted vertical and offer a complete turnkey solution, where platform and end application are all controlled by the operator to establish credibility as a solutions provider.
Telcos have a clear opportunity to develop applications and services that other industries and enterprises can use to manage their devices bundled with connectivity to move up in the value chain. Airlinq’s robust and scalable platform with features like remote device management, data orchestration, application enablement accelerates time-to-market, with a clear path to monetization. Benchmarked for 50 Million+ devices, Airlinq offers to broaden and diversify the portfolio with more specialized verticalization like the connected car.
Applications and vertical-specific solutions represent the lion’s share of IoT revenue. With Airlinq’s application enablement and orchestration capabilities, operators can deploy IoT services faster and tailor offerings to industries like automotive, smart cities, and logistics.
Ecosystem Enablement: The Next Frontier for Telcos
Once established in targeted verticals, operators need to develop more horizontal capabilities to address diverse business needs in different verticals and create an environment critical to build an ecosystem of connectivity, service management and billing. Application enablement being a key enabler for operators wanting to play the role of ecosystem enabler, requires them to develop and launch new IoT applications quickly in the market to gain competitive edge.
We offer IoT ecosystem enablement capabilities to operators to build newer IoT services and avenues for monetization with application enablement via pre-defined solutions, asset templates and ready to use API Sandbox. Our flagship EEP platform acts as a single touchpoint with API orchestration to build powerful, workflow-driven automation and integrate with third-party and enterprise applications.
True transformation happens when operators become ecosystem orchestrators—offering not only services but platforms and tools to third-party developers, enterprises, and integrators. Airlinq’s EEP platform empowers this shift with API orchestration, rapid deployment tools, and monetization capabilities at scale.
Catalyst in your journey to Ecosystem Enablement
As technology partners, AIRLINQ helps telcos gain vertical solutions capabilities and maximize IoT revenue streams from an integrated, accessible, and easy to activate global enterprise and consumer IoT services ecosystem. We offer service-based billing tailored to meet the needs of your IoT operations, accounting not only for connectivity but also for devices, applications, and bundled IoT services with API orchestration for a secure and comprehensive interface for enterprise and developer access to deliver IoT services and unified experience across the globe.
Our cloud-based Global Connectivity Management Platform enables mobile operators to launch and manage their IoT services globally. Its multi-tenant and micro-service driven architecture enables complete management and control over devices’ connectivity throughout their lifecycle and extends real-time visibility into device status; Identify & troubleshoot connectivity, and ensure higher service availability to the end customers.
Connect with us to maximize your IoT revenue streams. Airlinq is a frontrunner in this transformation. Our white-labeled platform is trusted by leading MNOs & Automotive OEMs across the globe to tie their connectivity needs and monetization plans.
Ready to unlock new revenue beyond connectivity? Discover how Airlinq empowers telecoms to lead in IoT ecosystem enablement. Speak with an expert!
FAQ
Q: What does it mean for telecom operators to move up the IoT value chain?
A: It involves evolving from a pure connectivity provider to a service enabler—offering platforms, applications, and ecosystem-level solutions.
Q: How does Airlinq support ecosystem enablement for telcos?
A: Airlinq provides a cloud-native IoT platform with API orchestration, application enablement, and lifecycle connectivity management to simplify deployment and unlock new revenue streams.