27 ms·

Twilio Super SIM

461 points by galfarragem 7y ago

32032141 7y ago
I've been wondering for a while what the purpose of all the NB band LTE stuff is even for. The going rate is often around 40c/MB in most countries (lower on Twilio by the looks of it, but the same order of magnitude), which seems like there's some very specific high value-per-byte application intended. Some of the technologies people are touting for very long battery life have transmission latencies of 10+ seconds as a trade off, which makes the applications for it even more restricted. It feels like the result is going to be that literally every device you can purchase will have a always connected LTE lojack attached. Imagine trying to firewall or restrict the network in your business when literally everything has its own backbone, it'll be a complete nightmare.
- walterbell 7y ago
  There are also LEO satellite networks on the way. Is it feasible to use physical RF shielding for devices?
  - namibj 7y ago
    Shielding by enough to throw any common network off is certainly feasible. Metallized non-opening windows (reflect IR from the sun to save on HVAC), metal plates or thin meshes on the outer walls and either rotating doors or a combination of rf-absorbing walls and a convoluted path to the inside that prevent radio waves from getting in through the door. I'd assume you can feasibly add 60 dB shielding to a building with that. More is obviously possible, there are conference rooms with advanced shielding of >100dB against industrial espionage. They use fiber optic communication lines to the outside because you want all electrical connections to be very heavily filtered to prevent conducting radio waves through them.
    - walterbell 7y ago
      Thank you! Are materials like these suitable: http://lessemf.com/fabric.html http://lessemf.com/fabric.html
  - sbr464 7y ago
    What’s interesting is a lot of new IoT devices operate or can fallback to a mesh or gateway mode configuration, for example, a group of common sensors that work together. So you’d potentially need to block Bluetooth, ZigBee, WiFi, LTE/GSM, GPS (messaging over GPS) and others to account for different radio technologies.
  - nick238 7y ago
    If you have physical access to the device, it's probably cheaper/easier to modify it, replacing the antenna with a load to ground. And if you're going to do that, you could probably negotiate with the provider to sell you a cheaper one with no LTE radios. I'm probably thinking of larger B2B though, individuals/SB probably won't have the expertise/influence
    - walterbell 7y ago
      > replacing the antenna with a load to ground. Would that be sufficient for an iPhone?
I-Iuw 7y ago
From a product perspective, this is really confusing. Twilio make business-facing APIs, is this supposed to be a consumer product? Why would I want API access to my own usage data? This feels like a far cry from their strategic strengths, except for that it’s phone-related.
- 32032141 7y ago
  This is for Internet of Thing usage, the customer is a company who is making Internet Widgets with some need to be able to communicate no matter where their Internet Widget is operating, without necessarily having to configure or prepare for the destination.
- discordance 7y ago
  This is still B2B. It's aimed at IoT devices
- taspeotis 7y ago
  > Super SIM allows IoT devices to connect to multiple operators. It’s for people who deploy IoT devices.
- sb8244 7y ago
  Agreed until you consider that there is a massive iot market and they're going after it with pretty cool innovation. We will probably never really hear about this project unless we're specifically in the iot world. That said I use a twilio SIM on my test phone and it is great. Was thinking of dual SIM with it but there's a few limitations I didn't want to live with.
mtw 7y ago
Can this do voice calls? I'm in Canada where every cell plan is more expensive than any other in the world. I have friends who purchase plans from Europe and then use the SIM locally with roaming - turns out it be 10x cheaper, the only drawback being that they have a foreign number
- 32032141 7y ago
  This isn't for personal use, so no calls. The data rate is probably around 2-5c/MB for Canada (though its not on the pricing list, that seems to be average), which puts it above even Rogers consumer plans. Google Fi is intended for consumer use and is 1c/MB in Canada (up to a cap, and then unlimited).
  - sb8244 7y ago
    It's hard to tell if this is similar to their programmable SIM offering or not... I have programmable SIM deployed in my iOS test phones and use it to place calls and texts from the phones (no contract is nice). I also pay about 12.5$/GB because I have the higher commit turned off
  - rsync 7y ago
    "This isn't for personal use, so no calls." Very little of Twilio is for "personal use" but you can still deploy it as such and there is another class of Twilio SIM product (programmable SIM) that you can do anything (voice, sms, etc.) you want with. I have built my own little personal telco out of twilio and couldn't be happier ... Well, except for an <email> verb in twiml - that would make me much happier ...
- byron_fast 7y ago
  They say voice won't work in Canada but that data does; I haven't been able to get either to work. But for $3 USD + usage per month I can use SMS.
- mgbmtl 7y ago
  I use a data-only cell plan ("tablet" plan from Fido), $15/month for 3 GB. For voice calls, I use a SIP account from voip.ms, which mostly goes to voicemail (SIP kind of drains cellphone battery). I rarely use voice, and people usually text because calling, and most use Signal/Whatsapp anyway. The voip.ms account is also useful for doing SMS, and associating apps with it (such as Signal/WhatsApp).
untog 7y ago
This is very cool tech, but it seems like a niche use-case. It's not made for consumers, and the vast majority of IoT devices barely move, let alone between countries. But, if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this being a great way to do it.
- detaro 7y ago
  Even if your IoT devices don't move, do you want to deal with 1-3 companies per country you deploy in and follow market changes there, or is that something you're willing to pay someone else to worry about?
  - dmix 7y ago
    You could sell something like 3g internet connected Kindles and without the overhead of some arrangement with a local carriers which Amazon had to set up with their WAN option (which also works globally).
- hahamrfunnyguy 7y ago
  I was thinking the opposite. It'd be nice not having to purchase a new SIM in each country you visit (if the rates are decent, anyway).
- byron_fast 7y ago
  I'm assuming the reason this is positioned as an IOT product is because they need to sell some product based on the network access they are able to negotiate. If they get allowed to use the 911 and voice network, I can imagine the product will shift to consumer pretty fast. I'm using it in Canada and although data doesn't work (despite their claims) I'm paying one tenth the cost of a local bargain cell plan so I can SMS.
- sequence7 7y ago
  > But, if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this being a great way to do it. If you wanted to do that in the EU you just need a sim card with data from any EU country. EU rules on roaming mean that your sim will work across the EU just as it does from its home country. I agree this would be a great use case if you're not only tracking in the EU though.
diminish 7y ago
Yay! We are approaching the SIMless world where you connect to mobile networks without a SIM or a universal SIM.
- tw1010 7y ago
  You make it sound like this is a trend, but this article is the first instance I've ever heart of the concept of a universal SIM?
  - fermuch 7y ago
    Hologram is another example, and there are many more but enterprise-focused. https://hologram.io/ https://hologram.io/
  - astatine 7y ago
    The technology has been around for several years now. There was reluctance (naturally) by the telcos in letting this happen, but applications are demanding it now bringing it more into the mainstream from the niche it used to occupy earlier.
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Kinda. I have eSIM phone and was hoping to sign up for a temporary plan while spending 3 days in Singapore - NAH! "Please enter your national ID number or come to our office to use eSIM". Meanwhile SIM cards are being sold while on plane, 100GB for 12 euros... Ok, I guess I can then easily sign up for this while back in Europe? Nope, every local website has no signs of english sign up form, many require ID card... The hope is I can do it via my phone menu, but even then calling me is going to be a rip-off (0.5 euro per minute when people been video calling for free for over a decade...)
emdowling 7y ago
Twilit has been on an absolute tear over the last 2 years. I wasn’t sure what they would do next to innovate, but their evolution to customer support products, authentication solutions and now this are inspired. What sets them apart is that, although they are a US company, they think globally. This product is for a global market, just like their app-based push authentication is (the huge market being Europe which has mandated 2FA requirements for finance companies coming into effect). Too many companies build and think about the US as the only market, then try to bring it to other markets which doesn’t always work well.
- contingencies 7y ago
  Counterpoint. While Twilio is interesting, I wonder what percentage of their business is simply multifactor authentication. Having previously used a wide range of companies for SMS connectivity (including multilingual, flash SMS, contact forwarding, and raw PDU features), and implemented VOIP systems with privately owned physical PSTN interface infrastructure, recently I looked at Twilio for inbound VOIP and SMS services across three Asian jurisdictions. It fell far short of our requirements, which were basic (phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country).
  - razakel 7y ago
    >phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country Was this actually possible if you'd used the local carriers directly? There could be some regulatory reason, like differences between cell and landline numbering plans for billing.
    - tiernano 7y ago
      mobile phone numbers can receive both sms and calls, so a mobile number would work, but you are right. it seems (in Ireland anyway) that getting a mobile number for VoIP stuff is fairly hard... you would need physical SIM cards and hardware...
  - tootie 7y ago
    By being the default option for MFA and SMS automation, they are an approved and contracted vendor at a zillion companies. Getting a customer to upgrade an existing contract is 100x easier than wooing a new customer. Especially when you have a reputation for being rock solid at your specialty.
ignoramous 7y ago
This is great (one plan worldwide, but in places with weak currency like India, paying in dollars might turn out to be expensive), but overall isn't the industry moving in the direction of eSIMs (no physical SIM required)? Moreover, once OneWeb, Starlink and the like launch worldwide internet service, it might pretty much render the telecom industry as it is today irrelevant?
- stingraycharles 7y ago
  Maybe, but there is a huge market of people that do not have an eSIM. They could use this, right now: this will allow Twilio to get a head-start in this market, rather than waiting until eSIMs reach critical mass (probably years away).
- wongarsu 7y ago
  I think we can expect Starlink to have similar coverage to GPS: great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building. Also the expected receiver size for Starlink is an order of magnitude bigger than the one for a cellular network. For phones, tracking, etc the cellular network would still be superior. Something like a car might go with both starlink and cellular because anywhere where one is weak the other is likely to be strong.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    > great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building... I'd think it'd work a bit like cable/DSL often does in an apartment company - one receiver for the building.
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      Or put in on the side of the building like regular satellite dishes. But realistically any apartment building that's not in the middle of nowhere will be better served by fiber anyways. Once you have multiple customers in the same building they will quickly feel the limit of how much bandwidth you can push to a small area throught the air from 500km away.
fermuch 7y ago
How is this different to Hologram[1] or EsEye[2]? Hologram seems to offer an api with as much access as twilio's (data usage report, switching between "networks" (what package you buy, which includes certain countries and pricing...) and monthly payment of a fleet of chips. I'm failing to see the added value of twilio, but the more competency the better! [1]: https://hologram.io/ https://hologram.io/ [2]: https://www.eseye.com/ https://www.eseye.com/
- taf2 7y ago
  Does it provide voice connectivity?
  - fermuch 7y ago
    Not that I'm aware of, but it might be possible. I don't have a chip with me right now so I can't test it. At my current job we use it for gps trackers and IoT devices attached to vehicles, so we don't use voice.
- sjtgraham 7y ago
  I wish folks would abstain from making "how is this different to X?" comments. They add very little to the conversation.
  - sharken 7y ago
    It is the difference between innovation and prior art/similar business, for me that makes sense to discuss.
  - toast0 7y ago
    I didn't click the links for this one. But often they provide an existing similar service, available today. This is great if the idea shown is so great you need it yesterday, and you hadn't seen it before.
  - dylanz 7y ago
    I actually like alternative solutions listed when something is posted on HN that I know nothing about. It's obviously best when the poster does some homework and lists the largest differentiators. I've seen the question "how is this different to X?" used, more often than not, in more of a combative context however where the user defends an alternative and then points negatively at the original. Just my $0.02 and I"m sure there's a better format that could be used, just not sure what that is exactly :)
lol768 7y ago
What's with the poor data pricing? These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely data intensive. At $50 / month you're going to get a total of 4GB in the USA. That's just unworkable for streaming video for e.g. remote CCTV applications. It seems like if you're doing anything interesting that uses more than insignificant amounts of data (beyond e.g. reporting GPS coordinates) you're better off taking out a business contract with a mobile network and using the roaming allowances built in there. E.g. you can get 3x the 4GB data that was billed at $50 by taking out a £15 business SIM contract from Three which incidentally will give you up to 1TB in the UK.
- konart 7y ago
  >remote CCTV applications. This is not for that kind of use case. >Super SIM allows IoT devices to connect to multiple operators. Get instant global connectivity on a single SIM. >Your device can travel around the world using one SIM... Think of a ballon traveling over Eurasia and sending back data.
- yaantc 7y ago
  > These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely data intensive. Yes, and this is by design. LTE NB-IoT is very different from the regular broadband LTE people are used to. It's made for devices that send a (short) message once in a while. Really, it's best to think about it as for small message oriented applications --- no data stream. To be low cost, a NB-IoT has only one receive antenna not two (or more) for regular LTE. Also, to reach into basements and harsh conditions, NB-IoT supports many repetitions. In theory up to x2048 times regular LTE, although most networks won't go that high. This means that the spectral efficiency of NB-IoT is much, much lower than for regular LTE. One byte over the air can cost a lot of resources, but it's ok because it's made for application with very little data to transmit: a meter level, a position... The data plans telcos sell for NB-IoT will forbid using a lot of data, it's just too inefficient. What NB-IoT needs to be is 1) low cost and 2) low power. For a meter sending one report per day, one can target a lifetime of 10+ years for example. So although NB-IoT can use the regular LTE channels, it really is a completely different kind of animal. LTE-M is similar, but a bit bigger / higher throughput. Still for small IoT applications, but with more data than NB-IoT can accomodate. If NB-IoT is a scooter, regular LTE is a truck. If you can fill the truck, it's more efficient. If you can't, because all you have to deliver is a pizza, then a scooter is best. Use the right tool for the job.
gz5 7y ago
At scale, will the price get to a point at which this can be a second interface? Maybe used as an OOB management plane interface for OTA updates, remote diagnostics etc? Perhaps used for some_other_use_cases in which second global interface would be useful? Would there be isolation and security benefits to that type of second interface?
zachruss92 7y ago
Their programmable SIM is super cool to me. I have been considering making my own DIY version of a light phone. Super SIM is interesting for IoT applications where you have something that crosses a wide geographic area (like freight). I'm very curious to see where this goes.
walterbell 7y ago
> Add new IMSIs through over-the-air updates on a platform with global resilience and redundancy. How big is the IMSI namespace? How quickly will Twilio put IMSIs back into a shared pool? Will they retain logs of IMSI-eSIM mapping?
fyfy18 7y ago
At a first glance the pricing of $0.10 - $0.025 per megabyte in Europe seems somewhat expensive. The wholesale rate is €4.50 per gigabyte or $0.005c per megabyte. I assume the markup covers the cost of maintaining the account and the access to many networks worldwide. Can anyone who is already using GSM data in "IoT" devices comment on how much this compares to what you pay now?
- bufferoverflow 7y ago
  €4.50/GB is absolutely insane for Europe. In Italy you can get 50GB for €7 From Kena or ho.mobile (€0.14/GB) or 50GB for €8 from Illiad (€0.16/GB). All at 4G speeds. https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited-edition/ https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited-edition... https://www.ho-mobile.it/ https://www.ho-mobile.it/ https://www.iliad.it/offerta-iliad.html https://www.iliad.it/offerta-iliad.html
  - watermelon0 7y ago
    Wholesale rate is for businesses where they pay for the actual usage, and consumer-oriented providers, which you mentioned, oversell network capacity.
    - remus 7y ago
      There's overselling and then there's assuming that the average user is only going to use 3% of their allowance! That seems pretty optimistic. Having said that presumably the wholesale rate varies quite a bit between countries, and I assume some contracts are offered as loss leaders.
    - bestham 7y ago
      The point about the overselling / oversubscribing for consumer rates actually goes counter to your point since every customer (consumer or business) all have the same priority in European networks.
    - bufferoverflow 7y ago
      One of my relatives in Italy is using Kena. It's solid. Even though they advertise 30 Mbps, we clocked it at 68 once. Generally it's more than enough to watch Youtube, which is where most bandwidth is spent, unless you hotspot to a laptop.
gigatexal 7y ago
So could one use this as an international works anywhere sim?
- rsync 7y ago
  I don't think this class of SIMs that Twilio offers are voice capable ... they do provide tmobile SIMs that are voice capable, but they call them something different ...
  - dqybh 7y ago
    You can always use OTT voice.
flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago
Forget IOT, I want this for my phone! It sounds almost too good to be true.
- Gorbzel 7y ago
  You want $25/GB for your phone?
- walterbell 7y ago
  Google Fi has $10/GB global LTE for US residents. Multiple SIM cards sharing the same plan, works on non-Google devices too, including mobile hotspots. In the US, they use T-Mobile.
  - garyclarke27 7y ago
    Yes Google Fi seems great, I just wish they wouold offer it to non US residents.
  - tibiapejagala 7y ago
    It's amusing that they went through all the pain of making a global SIM to make it available only for the US residents.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
obiefernandez 7y ago
Can I use this in my mobile phone?
rsync 7y ago
Twilio: If anyone there is listening, please, please give us an <email> verb in twiml ... it's the simplest thing and would be tremendously useful. I don't want to host offsite code or write complicated functions just to CC: an SMS to my email inbox ... A <email> twiml verb would be simple and useful.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Didn’t Twilio buy an email provider that would make this straightforward to implement? Edit: SendGrid!
  - rsync 7y ago
    As of the completion of the sendgrid acquisition, there is no email verb for twiml. Your only options are to host code on a third-party and call it from Twilio (sendgrid could be that Third party) or write a Twilio function. But the easiest way to do this, by far, would be a simple email verb in Twiml. No dice so far…
ForHackernews 7y ago
This sounds very similar to the Truphone SIM: https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/ https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/
- zemvpferreira 7y ago
  I wonder how a card-based solution will compete with e-sim. Seems like twilio’s advantage will be reduced to demand aggregation once e-sims are popular. Anyone have thoughts on differentiation in this space?
- owenversteeg 7y ago
  $90/gb! Yikes!
wintorez 7y ago
This can be a game changer.
scurvy 7y ago
Until they actually ship and make it GA, I reserve the right to call this vapor ware like the rest of the Twilio announcements in the past year. When is VPN for programmable wireless going to ship? Never?
- andrewkirk 7y ago
  PM for Super SIM here. We're running this as a closed beta now, hard at work getting it to GA.
  - scurvy 7y ago
    Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up. Or just wait until the product is GA...like a regular company. Otherwise it leads to customer disappointment and disillusionment. Just pull VPN for programmable wireless from your site. It's clear that it won't launch within a year or two from being "announced".
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up. Many betas are closed. That’s not unusual.
      - scurvy 7y ago
        It's not unusual but it's not a good idea. Just keep it confidential until ready, or ship a MVP and launch it as a real thing.
  - notatoad 7y ago
    I just signed in to my twilio account and ordered a "sim starter pack" thinking it was this, but if this is still in closed beta, what did i order? how does super-sim differ from the programmable wireless product?
    - andrewkirk 7y ago
hellllllllooo 7y ago
Any idea what the approximate pricing per GB is and how it scales with more devices?
xenospn 7y ago
Isn’t that exactly what Hologram does?
jtl999 7y ago
Don't know if anyone else has, but I've seen so called "global SIM" with multi IMSI type functionality from so called "secure phone" providers in the past. Interesting
zrail 7y ago
Slightly off topic. I’m trying to find a SIM for my LTE modem (AT&T/T-mobile bands) that I got as a backup for my Comcast service. I’m looking for pay as you go with no or minimal monthly fees, a reasonable 4g price, and a fallback to unlimited 3g. Does anyone know of a data plan like that? I tried to use Twilio Wireless but they don’t have the fallback option.
- subway 7y ago
  A Project Fi data only sim is probably your best bet.
  - sonar_un 7y ago
    Seconded.
  - umeshunni 7y ago
    Unfortunately that also requires a regular Fi account to be active ($20/mo)
- mxwll 7y ago
  Comcast offers Xfinity Mobile to their internet customers for free. You pay as you go for the data you use ($12/GB). You could probably tether a smartphone for data use.
  - wittedhaddock 7y ago
    What do you mean "for free" ?
andrewfromx 7y ago
I could be wrong, please correct me if I am, but doesn’t hologram offer all these same things?
gandutraveler 7y ago
Google Fi should roll out something like this. They already have good global coverage and prices
sbr464 7y ago
I’d be curious to hear from the folks at Particle.io on the offering/competition.
vertis 7y ago
I got really confused when I first saw this and though it was something for consumers not IoT devices (Sorry twilio team for the application for access shrug). I really wish someone would nail this for consumer phones. I'm coming up on a year away from home in various countries and the constant sim swapping is beginning to get annoying. I actually bought a dual sim phone so that I can keep my Australian sim card in for 2FA security sms messages (etc). Before someone suggests it, Google Fi is US only, unless you want to arrange for a reshipper (and even then, I'm not sure if it works).
- mcrae 7y ago
  I’m totally with you. The dream would be to have a single SIM which roams globally and to which you could attach multiple numbers from various countries. Closest I’ve found is https://www.truphone.com/ https://www.truphone.com/ but they seem not to offer individual plans.
  - wittedhaddock 7y ago
    Why do you want multiple numbers? Doesn't something like Whatsapp or FaceTime help prevent you from needing them?
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      That works for people you meet socially, but may be less accepted for business. There's also the case of e.g. Uber drivers calling you to ask for directions to where you are.
    - mcrae 7y ago
      Mostly for business. Maybe some people are comfortable to Whatsapp you, but it's inappropriate for a lot of situations. Also, in a lot of places you need a local number to get things done. Like when making reservations at restaurants or you leave your number in the POS to have them text when a table is ready, etc. As it is, I have a dual SIM Android phone as well as an iPhone and have 3 postpaid plans in different places. Massive pain.
netsec_burn 7y ago
I will wait for WiFi via Starlink, connectivity will be everywhere.
tjbiddle 7y ago
Nope. Not going to happen. I don't care about a multi-purpose SIM. I want cheap data. I keep my T-Mobile SIM for when I fly into the US, I reload it for $30-60 and use it for a month. I'm rarely in the US. I get back to Indonesia, I go to the local SIM store and buy 50GB of data for ~$13. With Twilio rates I'd be paying $1,250-5,000. Pass.
- detaro 7y ago
  You do realize that this is not a product for end-users at all?
tom169 7y ago
The business use that immediately comes to mind is tracking, such as for vehicles. Often cars are stolen in Europe and moved between countries.
davidnetten 7y ago
This product is intended for use in IoT devices and not really for 'iPhone use'. A few things to consider: First of, in the telecom market, there are two ways to get a discount: Buy more SIM cards, or buy more data. Let's say you offer a track-and-trace product, have deployed 1000 GPS trackers, you can easily get the monthly fees and the usage fees down to cents. Same goes for your 'GB-per-month' personal phone subscription, you buy more data, you get it cheaper. But since roaming will always be costly, even for wholesale carries, SIM card subscriptions that can be used globally are almost always A. expensive, or B intended for IoT (low usage). (GPS, trackers, sensors, feedback buttons, etc). Twilio is focussing on the latter with this SIM. That brings us to NB-IoT and LTE cat M. LTE cat M(machine) is basically a stripped down LTE modem, while an NB-IoT modem (or LTE cat Narrowband) is a stripped down LTE cat M modem. Network parameters for these types of connectivity have been tweaked in favour of power consumption at the costs of low bandwidth and high latency. You could say that LTE-M is used for 'MB's per month'-devices (smartwatch for example) and NB-IoT is used for 'bytes per month' devices (is my container full already). NB-IoT is cheap, extremely power efficient, but is not intended for moving devices. LTE-M can be used for more demanding applications, like smartwatches, panic buttons (including voice) etc. It can also be used in roaming applications, but that's it. No streaming video etc. So if you are looking to deploy a large scale IoT application, you want cheap, simple and energy-efficient hardware, which is why you need NB-IoT or LTE-M. You could go for other technologies like Sigfox or LoRaWan, but they are inferior to NB and LTE-M if you ask me (roaming, availability of network/hardware). In my view, Twilio does a great job of offering all kinds of telecom services (one stop shop), a common strategy in telecom called 'bundling'. But if you know what you want and where to look, you can get much better rates... Margins are great on this, I can assure you that :)

461 points by galfarragem 7y ago

32032141 7y ago

I've been wondering for a while what the purpose of all the NB band LTE stuff is even for. The going rate is often around 40c/MB in most countries (lower on Twilio by the looks of it, but the same order of magnitude), which seems like there's some very specific high value-per-byte application intended. Some of the technologies people are touting for very long battery life have transmission latencies of 10+ seconds as a trade off, which makes the applications for it even more restricted. It feels like the result is going to be that literally every device you can purchase will have a always connected LTE lojack attached. Imagine trying to firewall or restrict the network in your business when literally everything has its own backbone, it'll be a complete nightmare.

walterbell 7y ago
There are also LEO satellite networks on the way. Is it feasible to use physical RF shielding for devices?
- namibj 7y ago
  Shielding by enough to throw any common network off is certainly feasible. Metallized non-opening windows (reflect IR from the sun to save on HVAC), metal plates or thin meshes on the outer walls and either rotating doors or a combination of rf-absorbing walls and a convoluted path to the inside that prevent radio waves from getting in through the door. I'd assume you can feasibly add 60 dB shielding to a building with that. More is obviously possible, there are conference rooms with advanced shielding of >100dB against industrial espionage. They use fiber optic communication lines to the outside because you want all electrical connections to be very heavily filtered to prevent conducting radio waves through them.
  - walterbell 7y ago
    Thank you! Are materials like these suitable: http://lessemf.com/fabric.html http://lessemf.com/fabric.html
- sbr464 7y ago
  What’s interesting is a lot of new IoT devices operate or can fallback to a mesh or gateway mode configuration, for example, a group of common sensors that work together. So you’d potentially need to block Bluetooth, ZigBee, WiFi, LTE/GSM, GPS (messaging over GPS) and others to account for different radio technologies.
- nick238 7y ago
  If you have physical access to the device, it's probably cheaper/easier to modify it, replacing the antenna with a load to ground. And if you're going to do that, you could probably negotiate with the provider to sell you a cheaper one with no LTE radios. I'm probably thinking of larger B2B though, individuals/SB probably won't have the expertise/influence
  - walterbell 7y ago
    > replacing the antenna with a load to ground. Would that be sufficient for an iPhone?

I-Iuw 7y ago

From a product perspective, this is really confusing. Twilio make business-facing APIs, is this supposed to be a consumer product? Why would I want API access to my own usage data? This feels like a far cry from their strategic strengths, except for that it’s phone-related.

32032141 7y ago
This is for Internet of Thing usage, the customer is a company who is making Internet Widgets with some need to be able to communicate no matter where their Internet Widget is operating, without necessarily having to configure or prepare for the destination.
discordance 7y ago
This is still B2B. It's aimed at IoT devices
taspeotis 7y ago
> Super SIM allows IoT devices to connect to multiple operators. It’s for people who deploy IoT devices.
sb8244 7y ago
Agreed until you consider that there is a massive iot market and they're going after it with pretty cool innovation. We will probably never really hear about this project unless we're specifically in the iot world. That said I use a twilio SIM on my test phone and it is great. Was thinking of dual SIM with it but there's a few limitations I didn't want to live with.

mtw 7y ago

Can this do voice calls? I'm in Canada where every cell plan is more expensive than any other in the world. I have friends who purchase plans from Europe and then use the SIM locally with roaming - turns out it be 10x cheaper, the only drawback being that they have a foreign number

32032141 7y ago
This isn't for personal use, so no calls. The data rate is probably around 2-5c/MB for Canada (though its not on the pricing list, that seems to be average), which puts it above even Rogers consumer plans. Google Fi is intended for consumer use and is 1c/MB in Canada (up to a cap, and then unlimited).
- sb8244 7y ago
  It's hard to tell if this is similar to their programmable SIM offering or not... I have programmable SIM deployed in my iOS test phones and use it to place calls and texts from the phones (no contract is nice). I also pay about 12.5$/GB because I have the higher commit turned off
- rsync 7y ago
  "This isn't for personal use, so no calls." Very little of Twilio is for "personal use" but you can still deploy it as such and there is another class of Twilio SIM product (programmable SIM) that you can do anything (voice, sms, etc.) you want with. I have built my own little personal telco out of twilio and couldn't be happier ... Well, except for an <email> verb in twiml - that would make me much happier ...
byron_fast 7y ago
They say voice won't work in Canada but that data does; I haven't been able to get either to work. But for $3 USD + usage per month I can use SMS.
mgbmtl 7y ago
I use a data-only cell plan ("tablet" plan from Fido), $15/month for 3 GB. For voice calls, I use a SIP account from voip.ms, which mostly goes to voicemail (SIP kind of drains cellphone battery). I rarely use voice, and people usually text because calling, and most use Signal/Whatsapp anyway. The voip.ms account is also useful for doing SMS, and associating apps with it (such as Signal/WhatsApp).

untog 7y ago

This is very cool tech, but it seems like a niche use-case. It's not made for consumers, and the vast majority of IoT devices barely move, let alone between countries. But, if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this being a great way to do it.

detaro 7y ago
Even if your IoT devices don't move, do you want to deal with 1-3 companies per country you deploy in and follow market changes there, or is that something you're willing to pay someone else to worry about?
- dmix 7y ago
  You could sell something like 3g internet connected Kindles and without the overhead of some arrangement with a local carriers which Amazon had to set up with their WAN option (which also works globally).
hahamrfunnyguy 7y ago
I was thinking the opposite. It'd be nice not having to purchase a new SIM in each country you visit (if the rates are decent, anyway).
byron_fast 7y ago
I'm assuming the reason this is positioned as an IOT product is because they need to sell some product based on the network access they are able to negotiate. If they get allowed to use the 911 and voice network, I can imagine the product will shift to consumer pretty fast. I'm using it in Canada and although data doesn't work (despite their claims) I'm paying one tenth the cost of a local bargain cell plan so I can SMS.
sequence7 7y ago
> But, if I were working for a haulage company and was interested in tracking, say, truck location, speed etc across the whole of Europe I could see this being a great way to do it. If you wanted to do that in the EU you just need a sim card with data from any EU country. EU rules on roaming mean that your sim will work across the EU just as it does from its home country. I agree this would be a great use case if you're not only tracking in the EU though.

diminish 7y ago

Yay! We are approaching the SIMless world where you connect to mobile networks without a SIM or a universal SIM.

tw1010 7y ago
You make it sound like this is a trend, but this article is the first instance I've ever heart of the concept of a universal SIM?
- fermuch 7y ago
  Hologram is another example, and there are many more but enterprise-focused. https://hologram.io/ https://hologram.io/
- astatine 7y ago
  The technology has been around for several years now. There was reluctance (naturally) by the telcos in letting this happen, but applications are demanding it now bringing it more into the mainstream from the niche it used to occupy earlier.
dzhiurgis 7y ago
Kinda. I have eSIM phone and was hoping to sign up for a temporary plan while spending 3 days in Singapore - NAH! "Please enter your national ID number or come to our office to use eSIM". Meanwhile SIM cards are being sold while on plane, 100GB for 12 euros... Ok, I guess I can then easily sign up for this while back in Europe? Nope, every local website has no signs of english sign up form, many require ID card... The hope is I can do it via my phone menu, but even then calling me is going to be a rip-off (0.5 euro per minute when people been video calling for free for over a decade...)

emdowling 7y ago

Twilit has been on an absolute tear over the last 2 years. I wasn’t sure what they would do next to innovate, but their evolution to customer support products, authentication solutions and now this are inspired. What sets them apart is that, although they are a US company, they think globally. This product is for a global market, just like their app-based push authentication is (the huge market being Europe which has mandated 2FA requirements for finance companies coming into effect). Too many companies build and think about the US as the only market, then try to bring it to other markets which doesn’t always work well.

contingencies 7y ago
Counterpoint. While Twilio is interesting, I wonder what percentage of their business is simply multifactor authentication. Having previously used a wide range of companies for SMS connectivity (including multilingual, flash SMS, contact forwarding, and raw PDU features), and implemented VOIP systems with privately owned physical PSTN interface infrastructure, recently I looked at Twilio for inbound VOIP and SMS services across three Asian jurisdictions. It fell far short of our requirements, which were basic (phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country).
- razakel 7y ago
  >phone and SMS on the same number, one number per country Was this actually possible if you'd used the local carriers directly? There could be some regulatory reason, like differences between cell and landline numbering plans for billing.
  - tiernano 7y ago
    mobile phone numbers can receive both sms and calls, so a mobile number would work, but you are right. it seems (in Ireland anyway) that getting a mobile number for VoIP stuff is fairly hard... you would need physical SIM cards and hardware...
- tootie 7y ago
  By being the default option for MFA and SMS automation, they are an approved and contracted vendor at a zillion companies. Getting a customer to upgrade an existing contract is 100x easier than wooing a new customer. Especially when you have a reputation for being rock solid at your specialty.

ignoramous 7y ago

This is great (one plan worldwide, but in places with weak currency like India, paying in dollars might turn out to be expensive), but overall isn't the industry moving in the direction of eSIMs (no physical SIM required)? Moreover, once OneWeb, Starlink and the like launch worldwide internet service, it might pretty much render the telecom industry as it is today irrelevant?

stingraycharles 7y ago
Maybe, but there is a huge market of people that do not have an eSIM. They could use this, right now: this will allow Twilio to get a head-start in this market, rather than waiting until eSIMs reach critical mass (probably years away).
wongarsu 7y ago
I think we can expect Starlink to have similar coverage to GPS: great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building. Also the expected receiver size for Starlink is an order of magnitude bigger than the one for a cellular network. For phones, tracking, etc the cellular network would still be superior. Something like a car might go with both starlink and cellular because anywhere where one is weak the other is likely to be strong.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building... I'd think it'd work a bit like cable/DSL often does in an apartment company - one receiver for the building.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    Or put in on the side of the building like regular satellite dishes. But realistically any apartment building that's not in the middle of nowhere will be better served by fiber anyways. Once you have multiple customers in the same building they will quickly feel the limit of how much bandwidth you can push to a small area throught the air from 500km away.

fermuch 7y ago

How is this different to Hologram[1] or EsEye[2]? Hologram seems to offer an api with as much access as twilio's (data usage report, switching between "networks" (what package you buy, which includes certain countries and pricing...) and monthly payment of a fleet of chips. I'm failing to see the added value of twilio, but the more competency the better! [1]: https://hologram.io/ https://hologram.io/ [2]: https://www.eseye.com/ https://www.eseye.com/

taf2 7y ago
Does it provide voice connectivity?
- fermuch 7y ago
  Not that I'm aware of, but it might be possible. I don't have a chip with me right now so I can't test it. At my current job we use it for gps trackers and IoT devices attached to vehicles, so we don't use voice.
sjtgraham 7y ago
I wish folks would abstain from making "how is this different to X?" comments. They add very little to the conversation.
- sharken 7y ago
  It is the difference between innovation and prior art/similar business, for me that makes sense to discuss.
- toast0 7y ago
  I didn't click the links for this one. But often they provide an existing similar service, available today. This is great if the idea shown is so great you need it yesterday, and you hadn't seen it before.
- dylanz 7y ago
  I actually like alternative solutions listed when something is posted on HN that I know nothing about. It's obviously best when the poster does some homework and lists the largest differentiators. I've seen the question "how is this different to X?" used, more often than not, in more of a combative context however where the user defends an alternative and then points negatively at the original. Just my $0.02 and I"m sure there's a better format that could be used, just not sure what that is exactly :)

lol768 7y ago

What's with the poor data pricing? These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely data intensive. At $50 / month you're going to get a total of 4GB in the USA. That's just unworkable for streaming video for e.g. remote CCTV applications. It seems like if you're doing anything interesting that uses more than insignificant amounts of data (beyond e.g. reporting GPS coordinates) you're better off taking out a business contract with a mobile network and using the roaming allowances built in there. E.g. you can get 3x the 4GB data that was billed at $50 by taking out a £15 business SIM contract from Three which incidentally will give you up to 1TB in the UK.

konart 7y ago
>remote CCTV applications. This is not for that kind of use case. >Super SIM allows IoT devices to connect to multiple operators. Get instant global connectivity on a single SIM. >Your device can travel around the world using one SIM... Think of a ballon traveling over Eurasia and sending back data.
yaantc 7y ago
> These plans seem like a non-starter for _any_ application that's remotely data intensive. Yes, and this is by design. LTE NB-IoT is very different from the regular broadband LTE people are used to. It's made for devices that send a (short) message once in a while. Really, it's best to think about it as for small message oriented applications --- no data stream. To be low cost, a NB-IoT has only one receive antenna not two (or more) for regular LTE. Also, to reach into basements and harsh conditions, NB-IoT supports many repetitions. In theory up to x2048 times regular LTE, although most networks won't go that high. This means that the spectral efficiency of NB-IoT is much, much lower than for regular LTE. One byte over the air can cost a lot of resources, but it's ok because it's made for application with very little data to transmit: a meter level, a position... The data plans telcos sell for NB-IoT will forbid using a lot of data, it's just too inefficient. What NB-IoT needs to be is 1) low cost and 2) low power. For a meter sending one report per day, one can target a lifetime of 10+ years for example. So although NB-IoT can use the regular LTE channels, it really is a completely different kind of animal. LTE-M is similar, but a bit bigger / higher throughput. Still for small IoT applications, but with more data than NB-IoT can accomodate. If NB-IoT is a scooter, regular LTE is a truck. If you can fill the truck, it's more efficient. If you can't, because all you have to deliver is a pizza, then a scooter is best. Use the right tool for the job.

gz5 7y ago

At scale, will the price get to a point at which this can be a second interface? Maybe used as an OOB management plane interface for OTA updates, remote diagnostics etc? Perhaps used for some_other_use_cases in which second global interface would be useful? Would there be isolation and security benefits to that type of second interface?

zachruss92 7y ago

Their programmable SIM is super cool to me. I have been considering making my own DIY version of a light phone. Super SIM is interesting for IoT applications where you have something that crosses a wide geographic area (like freight). I'm very curious to see where this goes.

walterbell 7y ago

> Add new IMSIs through over-the-air updates on a platform with global resilience and redundancy. How big is the IMSI namespace? How quickly will Twilio put IMSIs back into a shared pool? Will they retain logs of IMSI-eSIM mapping?

fyfy18 7y ago

At a first glance the pricing of $0.10 - $0.025 per megabyte in Europe seems somewhat expensive. The wholesale rate is €4.50 per gigabyte or $0.005c per megabyte. I assume the markup covers the cost of maintaining the account and the access to many networks worldwide. Can anyone who is already using GSM data in "IoT" devices comment on how much this compares to what you pay now?

bufferoverflow 7y ago
€4.50/GB is absolutely insane for Europe. In Italy you can get 50GB for €7 From Kena or ho.mobile (€0.14/GB) or 50GB for €8 from Illiad (€0.16/GB). All at 4G speeds. https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited-edition/ https://www.kenamobile.it/prodotto/kena-6-99-limited-edition... https://www.ho-mobile.it/ https://www.ho-mobile.it/ https://www.iliad.it/offerta-iliad.html https://www.iliad.it/offerta-iliad.html
- watermelon0 7y ago
  Wholesale rate is for businesses where they pay for the actual usage, and consumer-oriented providers, which you mentioned, oversell network capacity.
  - remus 7y ago
    There's overselling and then there's assuming that the average user is only going to use 3% of their allowance! That seems pretty optimistic. Having said that presumably the wholesale rate varies quite a bit between countries, and I assume some contracts are offered as loss leaders.
  - bestham 7y ago
    The point about the overselling / oversubscribing for consumer rates actually goes counter to your point since every customer (consumer or business) all have the same priority in European networks.
  - bufferoverflow 7y ago
    One of my relatives in Italy is using Kena. It's solid. Even though they advertise 30 Mbps, we clocked it at 68 once. Generally it's more than enough to watch Youtube, which is where most bandwidth is spent, unless you hotspot to a laptop.

gigatexal 7y ago

So could one use this as an international works anywhere sim?

rsync 7y ago
I don't think this class of SIMs that Twilio offers are voice capable ... they do provide tmobile SIMs that are voice capable, but they call them something different ...
- dqybh 7y ago
  You can always use OTT voice.

flyGuyOnTheSly 7y ago

Forget IOT, I want this for my phone! It sounds almost too good to be true.

Gorbzel 7y ago
You want $25/GB for your phone?
walterbell 7y ago
Google Fi has $10/GB global LTE for US residents. Multiple SIM cards sharing the same plan, works on non-Google devices too, including mobile hotspots. In the US, they use T-Mobile.
- garyclarke27 7y ago
  Yes Google Fi seems great, I just wish they wouold offer it to non US residents.
- tibiapejagala 7y ago
  It's amusing that they went through all the pain of making a global SIM to make it available only for the US residents.
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obiefernandez 7y ago

Can I use this in my mobile phone?

rsync 7y ago

Twilio: If anyone there is listening, please, please give us an <email> verb in twiml ... it's the simplest thing and would be tremendously useful. I don't want to host offsite code or write complicated functions just to CC: an SMS to my email inbox ... A <email> twiml verb would be simple and useful.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Didn’t Twilio buy an email provider that would make this straightforward to implement? Edit: SendGrid!
- rsync 7y ago
  As of the completion of the sendgrid acquisition, there is no email verb for twiml. Your only options are to host code on a third-party and call it from Twilio (sendgrid could be that Third party) or write a Twilio function. But the easiest way to do this, by far, would be a simple email verb in Twiml. No dice so far…

ForHackernews 7y ago

This sounds very similar to the Truphone SIM: https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/ https://www.truphone.com/us/consumer/sim/

zemvpferreira 7y ago
I wonder how a card-based solution will compete with e-sim. Seems like twilio’s advantage will be reduced to demand aggregation once e-sims are popular. Anyone have thoughts on differentiation in this space?
owenversteeg 7y ago
$90/gb! Yikes!

wintorez 7y ago

This can be a game changer.

scurvy 7y ago

Until they actually ship and make it GA, I reserve the right to call this vapor ware like the rest of the Twilio announcements in the past year. When is VPN for programmable wireless going to ship? Never?

andrewkirk 7y ago
PM for Super SIM here. We're running this as a closed beta now, hard at work getting it to GA.
- scurvy 7y ago
  Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up. Or just wait until the product is GA...like a regular company. Otherwise it leads to customer disappointment and disillusionment. Just pull VPN for programmable wireless from your site. It's clear that it won't launch within a year or two from being "announced".
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Don't announce a beta unless it's available for public sign up. Many betas are closed. That’s not unusual.
    - scurvy 7y ago
      It's not unusual but it's not a good idea. Just keep it confidential until ready, or ship a MVP and launch it as a real thing.
- notatoad 7y ago
  I just signed in to my twilio account and ordered a "sim starter pack" thinking it was this, but if this is still in closed beta, what did i order? how does super-sim differ from the programmable wireless product?
  - andrewkirk 7y ago

hellllllllooo 7y ago

Any idea what the approximate pricing per GB is and how it scales with more devices?

xenospn 7y ago

Isn’t that exactly what Hologram does?

jtl999 7y ago

Don't know if anyone else has, but I've seen so called "global SIM" with multi IMSI type functionality from so called "secure phone" providers in the past. Interesting

zrail 7y ago

Slightly off topic. I’m trying to find a SIM for my LTE modem (AT&T/T-mobile bands) that I got as a backup for my Comcast service. I’m looking for pay as you go with no or minimal monthly fees, a reasonable 4g price, and a fallback to unlimited 3g. Does anyone know of a data plan like that? I tried to use Twilio Wireless but they don’t have the fallback option.

subway 7y ago
A Project Fi data only sim is probably your best bet.
- sonar_un 7y ago
  Seconded.
- umeshunni 7y ago
  Unfortunately that also requires a regular Fi account to be active ($20/mo)
mxwll 7y ago
Comcast offers Xfinity Mobile to their internet customers for free. You pay as you go for the data you use ($12/GB). You could probably tether a smartphone for data use.
- wittedhaddock 7y ago
  What do you mean "for free" ?

andrewfromx 7y ago

I could be wrong, please correct me if I am, but doesn’t hologram offer all these same things?

gandutraveler 7y ago

Google Fi should roll out something like this. They already have good global coverage and prices

sbr464 7y ago

I’d be curious to hear from the folks at Particle.io on the offering/competition.

vertis 7y ago

I got really confused when I first saw this and though it was something for consumers not IoT devices (Sorry twilio team for the application for access shrug). I really wish someone would nail this for consumer phones. I'm coming up on a year away from home in various countries and the constant sim swapping is beginning to get annoying. I actually bought a dual sim phone so that I can keep my Australian sim card in for 2FA security sms messages (etc). Before someone suggests it, Google Fi is US only, unless you want to arrange for a reshipper (and even then, I'm not sure if it works).

mcrae 7y ago
I’m totally with you. The dream would be to have a single SIM which roams globally and to which you could attach multiple numbers from various countries. Closest I’ve found is https://www.truphone.com/ https://www.truphone.com/ but they seem not to offer individual plans.
- wittedhaddock 7y ago
  Why do you want multiple numbers? Doesn't something like Whatsapp or FaceTime help prevent you from needing them?
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    That works for people you meet socially, but may be less accepted for business. There's also the case of e.g. Uber drivers calling you to ask for directions to where you are.
  - mcrae 7y ago
    Mostly for business. Maybe some people are comfortable to Whatsapp you, but it's inappropriate for a lot of situations. Also, in a lot of places you need a local number to get things done. Like when making reservations at restaurants or you leave your number in the POS to have them text when a table is ready, etc. As it is, I have a dual SIM Android phone as well as an iPhone and have 3 postpaid plans in different places. Massive pain.

netsec_burn 7y ago

I will wait for WiFi via Starlink, connectivity will be everywhere.

tjbiddle 7y ago

Nope. Not going to happen. I don't care about a multi-purpose SIM. I want cheap data. I keep my T-Mobile SIM for when I fly into the US, I reload it for $30-60 and use it for a month. I'm rarely in the US. I get back to Indonesia, I go to the local SIM store and buy 50GB of data for ~$13. With Twilio rates I'd be paying $1,250-5,000. Pass.

detaro 7y ago
You do realize that this is not a product for end-users at all?

tom169 7y ago

The business use that immediately comes to mind is tracking, such as for vehicles. Often cars are stolen in Europe and moved between countries.

davidnetten 7y ago

This product is intended for use in IoT devices and not really for 'iPhone use'. A few things to consider: First of, in the telecom market, there are two ways to get a discount: Buy more SIM cards, or buy more data. Let's say you offer a track-and-trace product, have deployed 1000 GPS trackers, you can easily get the monthly fees and the usage fees down to cents. Same goes for your 'GB-per-month' personal phone subscription, you buy more data, you get it cheaper. But since roaming will always be costly, even for wholesale carries, SIM card subscriptions that can be used globally are almost always A. expensive, or B intended for IoT (low usage). (GPS, trackers, sensors, feedback buttons, etc). Twilio is focussing on the latter with this SIM. That brings us to NB-IoT and LTE cat M. LTE cat M(machine) is basically a stripped down LTE modem, while an NB-IoT modem (or LTE cat Narrowband) is a stripped down LTE cat M modem. Network parameters for these types of connectivity have been tweaked in favour of power consumption at the costs of low bandwidth and high latency. You could say that LTE-M is used for 'MB's per month'-devices (smartwatch for example) and NB-IoT is used for 'bytes per month' devices (is my container full already). NB-IoT is cheap, extremely power efficient, but is not intended for moving devices. LTE-M can be used for more demanding applications, like smartwatches, panic buttons (including voice) etc. It can also be used in roaming applications, but that's it. No streaming video etc. So if you are looking to deploy a large scale IoT application, you want cheap, simple and energy-efficient hardware, which is why you need NB-IoT or LTE-M. You could go for other technologies like Sigfox or LoRaWan, but they are inferior to NB and LTE-M if you ask me (roaming, availability of network/hardware). In my view, Twilio does a great job of offering all kinds of telecom services (one stop shop), a common strategy in telecom called 'bundling'. But if you know what you want and where to look, you can get much better rates... Margins are great on this, I can assure you that :)