The Journal of mHealth Vol 2 Issue 2 (Apr 2015) | Página 24

Conference
News
mHealth will Benefit from New
Mobile Initiatives Announced at
MWC
Common Remote Provisioning Specification
to Put Consumers in Control of Connecting
Mobile Devices and Help to Grow Market
The GSMA announced during last
month’s Mobile World Congress event
in Barcelona that it is working with
mobile network operators, mobile device
manufacturers and SIM vendors to create a common and global specification
for the remote over-the-air provisioning and management of connectivity to
consumer devices. The industry-wide
initiative will allow consumers to activate
the SIM embedded in a device such as a
smartphone, tablet or wearable with the
mobile network operator of their choice.
A common approach and consistent
user experience will also help to grow
the market by allowing consumer device
manufacturers to build products that
support global deployment.
The initiative will have significant benefit
for health consumers using mobile health
apps or connected health and medical
devices to more easily travel throughout
the world without fear that their device or
monitoring solution will not be compatible
with local network providers. It also opens
the door for finally enabling the true benefits of technology mobility to be realised.
“Currently there is no agreed industry solution for how consumers can
remotely connect devices to a
mobile network,” said Alex Sin-

22

April 2015

clair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA.
“This announcement demonstrates that
the industry is unified in working to create a common and interoperable specification that will reduce market fragmentation and maintain the experience of
connecting devices in the future.”
The GSMA Consumer Remote SIM
Provisioning initiative is leading and
coordinating industry activities with a
number of complementary “proofs of
concept”, which together are contributing to the development of an end-to-end
remote SIM solution. These have been
designed to help shape the best technical
specification for the mobile industry as
well as for consumers.
Results are expected in Q3 2015 with the
delivery of a common specification for
the remote provisioning of consumer
devices anticipated by 2016.
The initiative has received strong industry support from mobile operators
including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom,
Hutchison Whampoa, KDDI, Orange,
Ooredoo and Vodafone.
“AT&T has been innovating in this area
for years with our current global solution
called AT&T global SIM, making wireless connectivity for consumers and businesses simple, seamless and highly secure,"
said Chris Penrose, Senior Vice President,
Internet of Things Solutions, AT&T. "We
look forward to continuing to work with

the GSMA Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning initiative and carriers around the
world to make it even easier for our customers to mobilise their world.”
“What we want to achieve with eSIM is
simplicity and convenience for our end
customers,” said Thorsten Müller, SVP
Core Telco Products at Deutsche Telekom. “Adding a device to my personal
data plan will become as simple as scanning a barcode.”
“Embedded SIM is a promising solution
that brings delightful consumer experiences
to our customers as well as ever-increasing roamers,” said Yasuhide Yamamoto,
Vice President, Product Sector at KDDI.
“KDDI is working to establish a globally
unique, interoperable ecosystem with the
GSMA and partner operators to enable
greater convenience for our customers.”
“Ooredoo is striving to offer an
enhanced, consistent customer experience across its footprint, and we are fully
committed to this industry-wide effort
to support an agreed approach to remote
provisioning by wireless devices. This
shared effort will enable customers to
benefit from the full potential of mobile
technology including mobile identity,
M2M and mCommerce,” said Dr. Nasser