15 ms·

Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

262 points by samdung 6y ago

lowmemcpu 6y ago
Is this intended for consumers or corporations? Could someone clarify the use-cases? It looks like it's $100+ for 1GB of data
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  IoT devices don't use SIM cards for gigabytes of data; they use them for bytes and kilobytes of data. That's why this is billed by the byte.
- brandon 6y ago
  This is likely aimed at $device_manufacturer that wants to put a cellular modem into their device for remote telemetry (uploading a tiny payload every 24 hours for the lifetime on the device). There's a lot of attention in the docs towards "fleets" — they aren't expecting you to just buy one.
- wrkronmiller 6y ago
  I imagine it's best-suited for corporations making devices that can be deployed to arbitrary countries. It looks like you're paying an enormous premium on data for the ability for this sim to "just work" internationally. Another use case might be for tinkerers creating very low-bandwidth applications (e.g. a few megabytes/texts per month). For anyone else I imagine it makes more sense just to buy a prepaid SIM and swap it out as-needed.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- mrshadowgoose 6y ago
  This is not intended for direct use by consumers. This is intended for devices that require internet connectivity, but might not have reliable access to a WiFi or wired network. Examples include: fleet management vehicle trackers, meteorology sensors, centrally controllable streetlamps These are commonly referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) applications. These devices typically use a very small amount of bandwidth (relative to a mobile phone user) but need the reliability of being able to roam across multiple networks. Hence the relatively steep $100/GB.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM, and I can try to answer these questions: _Is this intended for consumers or corporations?_ It's for developers! We try not to look at our offerings as being strictly for consumers or corporations, but rather for the developers who use them, regardless of where they work. We want any developer with an IoT idea to be able to pursue it, whether their team is one person or one hundred. (This is a common philosophy at Twilio and was the thinking behind offering pay-as-you-go pricing on nearly all of our products.) _Could someone clarify the use-cases?_ Super SIM is designed for cellular IoT, where we often see use cases like fleet tracking, industrial field monitoring, or micromobility. But there are a lot of use cases for cellular, with new ones showing up every day. An interesting trend we’ve seen is the use of cellular connectivity for things like point-of-sale systems in places where you normally expect there to be Wi-Fi. By using cellular connectivity, these point-of-sale platforms are able to eliminate the variability that comes with each different customer’s Wi-Fi setup, offering their customers a much better out-of-the-box experience because their customers can simply turn on the system and get connected. _It looks like it's $100+ for 1GB of data_ Our data prices start at $0.10 per MB but this pricing is meant to just get you started. We don’t expect any of our developers to scale up their IoT business at these list prices. Once you’re up and running, you can connect with one of our IoT sales specialists to discuss volume discounts.
cordite 6y ago
Viewing this site took 4.5MB with trackers. That's half a dollar of data. Now I understand that IOT stuff would likely have smaller payloads. But that really looks like a great way to rack up costs with a run away program submitting or retrieving data in a bad loop.
- sb8244 6y ago
  I wonder if this will be like Programmable Wireless where you can get cheaper data rates for different levels of commit. Their pricing page says "starts at" and doesn't really go into how they handle bulk discount. If this really is the pricing, then it's definitely IOT focused instead of Programmable Wireless's more general focus.
  - matjaxon 6y ago
    Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. Glad you're familiar with Programmable Wireless, our other cellular connectivity offering! The “starts at” that we have on our pricing page is for the cheapest priced networks we have in each country. For example, in the UK we have a number of networks that are $0.10 per MB but if you want to use EE it’s $0.20 per MB. With our Network Access Profiles, you can pick exactly which networks you want your Super SIMs to be able to connect to. If EE is the only network that services your area or works best with your hardware and is worth premium to use, you can enable it for your Super SIMs. For now, we just have a pay-as-you-go pricing plan for Super SIM whereas Programmable Wireless has a number of different quota plans that let you commit to a minimum monthly spend per SIM in exchange for discounts as a way for you to self service into lower data costs for hungrier devices. Our pay-as-you-go prices are meant to just get you started. We don’t expect any of our developers to scale up their IoT business at these list prices. Once you’re up and running, you can connect with one of our IoT sales specialists to discuss volume discounts. Promise they don’t bite!
- gk1 6y ago
  Pretty sure you could set limits or alerts on bandwidth usage to avoid that.
- 6y ago
Nextgrid 6y ago
Curious as to how does this compare to "Programmable Wireless" and whether it supports calls and SMS? It's not clear whether it's an evolution of Programmable Wireless or something totally separate. I tend towards the latter because the documentation is separate between both offerings. Last time I tried Programmable Wireless it was very lacking. Calls were not supported on roaming at all (so I couldn't test it as I'm outside the US) and SMS was very flaky; some texts outright bypassed the SMS to API routing and were handled by the upstream carrier directly. There was also a "bug" where you couldn't send SMS to the SIM using an arbitrary originator number. I say bug in quotes because I'm sure there is some obscure reason for it (or is it to cover a limitation?) because the error code returned was custom and seemed explicitly made for this reason (and was not mentioned on any docs). I understand it was in early beta when I tried it but none of these issues were resolved even years later.
- deleted 6y ago
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- sjtgraham 6y ago
  Super SIM is on Twilio’s own core networking stack rather than being a shim on top of T-Mobile. Presumably these issues would be resolved with Super SIM. (I don’t know if they have been yet)
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. It’s great to hear that you tested out Programmable Wireless and your feedback is appreciated. _How does Super SIM compare to Programmable Wireless?_ Super SIM is a separate offering from Programmable Wireless. Our first IoT connectivity solution, Programmable Wireless, was developed in partnership with T-Mobile, allowing us to connect to T-Mobile’s global partner network and run on top of T-Mobile’s mobile core infrastructure. For Super SIM, we developed our own cloud scale mobile core that allows us to connect with multiple partners, offering a comprehensive, guaranteed list of tier-1 networks for your devices to connect to. Moreover, with Super SIM, we’re able to extend control to you as the developer by letting you choose which networks your Super SIMs can and cannot connect to. This is really important for IoT use cases where your hardware may not be compatible with all of the networks that are available in a country. While we offer a lot of our networks at the same price, there are some that may be more costly but can offer you more redundant coverage or coverage in more remote regions. You can choose which networks work best for your use case and your customers and take control of your connectivity. _Does Super SIM support voice calling and SMS?_ Super SIM was designed with IoT use cases in mind that primarily use data. You can use our SMS Commands API to send machine-to-machine SMS between your device and your cloud but Super SIM does not support sending or receiving SMS from other phone numbers. Super SIM does not support traditional calling such as with a smartphone’s native dialer. _Why can’t I send SMS with an arbitrary originator number with Programmable Wireless SIMs? Is this a bug?_ This is the intended behavior. When you send a SMS from a phone’s messaging apps with Programmable Wireless SIMs that message gets handled by Twilio’s Programmable SMS APIs. You cannot set the from number on those messages to a phone number that is not a Twilio phone number that you own. This prevents number spoofing which while it has valid uses, it’s often used for SMS spamming which Twilio takes very seriously so this is a limitation to that feature.
bredren 6y ago
I worked on IoT projects for two major wireless carriers both trying to sell hardware integrated with data management. I think the idea was to sort of create value-added services on top of the dumb pipe. Both companies invested heavily in the projects and both failed badly. One of the major issues was just getting a dev setup using all the proprietary stuff involved. Onboarding developers was just one issue. Both systems tied together a bunch of partners, and the folks running both shows had no technical background. Nor their managers. Order the SIM from the console makes things pretty easy. Twilio has consistently delivered easy ways to access cell stuff. This is def a step in the right direction. It would be awesome to tinker with this product for sensor data.
- deleted 6y ago
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Nextgrid 6y ago
If you're interested in this space, Hologram does the same thing (and appears to have had a head start compared to Twilio): https://hologram.io https://hologram.io
- akulkarni 6y ago
  Was going to post the same thing. I wonder how the two compare. Pricing-wise, seems like Twilio has higher fixed but lower usage costs: https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim | Starting at $2 per active Super SIM per month. | Data Usage - Starting at $0.10 / MB. https://hologram.io/pricing/ https://hologram.io/pricing/ | $1 per device per month + $0.38 / MB. Of course these prices depend on device volume. Twilio may be able to offer lower costs because of their scale, but perhaps Hologram can provide a better user experience because this is the only thing they do.
  - kimi 6y ago
    I'm frankly appalled at $0.10/MB. Are we still in the 90's?
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      These devices are essentially roaming wherever they are. The use case is that you're sending far smaller data than a megabyte in even a day - maybe a GPS update once an hour, that sort of thing.
    - thrwaway69 6y ago
      A single visit to one of the apple's product landing page would cost - $5. Doesn't seem too bad to me.
    - Ductapemaster 6y ago
      I work for an IoT company, and I can tell you that data costs are high for IoT because the cost model is different. You purchase a 10GB plan from AT&T for your cell phone and they know that you likely won't use it all, so they can "oversell" data. With IoT, you have a much better handle on how much data you use so when you purchase a 10MB plan, they know you will use almost all of it. Additionally, IoT devices tend to have higher backend infrastructure costs as they often connect/disconnect from the towers as they wake up and go to sleep, or move around between towers /carriers a lot. Plus the "always roaming" statement above adds cost in exchange for flexibility. It's just a different business altogether.
jtdev 6y ago
Think cargo ship containers and other similar internationally transient use cases. Sounds like an exciting product/service. Looking forward to seeing how this is used.
- gk1 6y ago
  Trucks, containers, ships, cars... But also anything that is centrally manufactured or managed but distributed globally. Imagine being able to buy and manage SIMs from one place regardless of whether your [connected thing] will be deployed in United States or in Timor-Leste.
gk1 6y ago
Looks like a killer of all other IoT connectivity solutions (eg, Verizon, AT&T, Particle). Those IoT platforms better find a way to support third-party SIMs, if they don't already. Source: Consulted AT&T on bringing their IoT Connectivity solution to market. Their huge cell network was the main selling point; the platform and services were add-ons. Edit: Another commenter mentioned Hologram, which already has a global Sim and therefore a lead start. I haven't watched this space for a few years and forgot about them. Good for them!
- elwes5 6y ago
  I know the Verizon one does. It just is not on their pages. The platform they bought from Qualcomm to do it was in that same space as Twilio. Been a few years though they may have ripped it out by this point. 10 cents per MB and 5 cents per SMS. Ouch!
- Gamemaster1379 6y ago
  Particle has a number of devices that already support third party SIMs (their Electron and Boron lines in particular). Particle also has partnered with Twilio in the past. I know there was some legacy integration with Twilio SIMs. Particle's value prop is an IoT platform where cellular connectivity is a component. If anything, this seems like it would be complimentary and not a killer to their value prop.
  - gk1 6y ago
    Valid point. I mean this kills their connectivity offering, which in my AT&T example was the core thing. Sounds like Particle now treats connectivity as a commodity and focuses on the platform. Good decision.
  - Ductapemaster 6y ago
    Thanks for the mention! I'm an employee at Particle, and this is exactly it. I'll be honest and say that dealing with carriers sucks. If you want to bring your IoT device to market, you want to focus on building that device — not negotiating with AT&T or Verizon. We protect our users from that so you can focus on your core competencies and shipping your products. We leverage our large deployed base of devices for negotiations in a way that you cannot if you are a single IoT business. We've actually had customers use Particle, decide they wanted to do their own thing for cost/complexity reasons, start a relationship with the carriers, and come running back because it was intractable for them.
Animats 6y ago
So, it's a VPN for cellular data, right?
- gk1 6y ago
  How did you arrive at that? It's a SIM to enable IoT devices to connect to (almost) any available network. It is not cloaking the origin of the data, or even if it is, that's not why companies will buy this.
  - Animats 6y ago
    That's what a virtual private network is - an overlay on transport networks to allow a group of devices under the same ownership to communicate. While VPNs are often used to cloak IP addresses, they were originally a corporate thing. Your in-house net could be transported over the public Internet while keeping its in-house address space and some degree of privacy.
- neximo64 6y ago
  So, human beings are basically apes, right?
rsync 6y ago
No verizon support, unfortunately ... https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/available-networks#north-america https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/available-networks#...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Are there any geo areas where ATT+TMO/Sprint (combined due to merger) isn't at parity with VZ?
  - bob12co 6y ago
    I live in a mountainous area, and there is a very large difference. So much so that VZ is basically my only option. I think what happens is that tower leases in some protected areas can be hard to negotiate, so the cost/benefit ratio gets out of whack for new towers (amongst other issues with power, construction, and RF propagation in remote, mountain areas). Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Towers are typically owned by a REIT (real estate investment trust) or other entity that develops the tower and telco/equipment shelter and then leases out space on the tower to mobile providers (cost is higher to the mobile provider the higher you want to be on the tower). In some locations, there just isn't any land to site the tower due to regs (national parks comes to mind, nothing except my Iridium hotspot works in parts of the Smokey Mountains), so there are no providers or a single provider who was able to swing a special case on an existing tower (water tower or similar).
  - avree 6y ago
    Yes, many. Verizon is still the only option for reception in many areas—I live in Los Altos Hills, and the only provider with reception for much of the town is Verizon.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. You’re right, we currently don’t have support for Verizon but we hope to be able to add it in the future. We understand that different developers have different connectivity preferences, so we designed our system to be flexible to adding new partners to the platform. As we continue to add networks, the networks of the future should become available to Super SIMs bought today. With Super SIM you can also have access to multiple networks at once. For example, if you’re connected to T-Mobile and move to an area where there isn’t coverage, your device can automatically switch over to AT&T. This gives you redundant connectivity too in case any one network or tower goes down.
xrisk 6y ago
Could a potential use case be soldering these onto consumer electronics and phoning home telemetry even if the user doesn’t connect to WiFi?
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  Yes. So long as you have a subscription service (or are willing to eat the cost). This is how many home security systems handle things these days. No need for a phone line (which can be cut) or wifi (which is lost with a power outage). A control panel and the sensors have batteries that continue operating despite power loss and network outages.
- mrshadowgoose 6y ago
  Potentially yes. This is just a SIM card, so one would additionally need to have a modem, consistent power source and space for all of these extra items. The value of the telemetry would need to be worth several dollars / month over several years to justify this.
- Ductapemaster 6y ago
  A powerful use case here is at-home medical devices (think blood glucose monitors). With a SIM and cellular service, they can work anywhere, be agnostic to consumer WiFi issues (oops, someone changed the WiFi password!), and give "real-time" updates to a doctor or other health professional. Getting patient data has a huge barrier today and there is a ton of room for improvement, leaving the door open to better/more proactive care.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Apologies if this is a dumb question - can I use this on a person phone for consumer use cases (voice/text/data)?
- wrkronmiller 6y ago
  You would probably rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in data charges.
- skrtskrt 6y ago
  Yes but the data is crazy expensive for that use case. Companies that offer this aggregate connectivity through carriers across many countries which can vary widely in price, so they have to price in order to protect themselves in case someone only uses it in (insert most expensive region). So you're paying premium for it to work many places. And it's intended for small data chunks that would be sent by things like IOT sensor clusters. If you know you're only going to use it in (these N regions) you could possibly work with them to get a better rate and have them blacklist your traffic in the more expensive regions.
- bwooceli 6y ago
  you can use their normal programmable wireless for that. I did and pay $1/month to have a sim sit in a $30 Nokia dumbphone that the kids can use when they ride their bikes to the park. There are ... quirks. Turns out the SIM cards have a "real" phone number that you don't know about, so even though you're routing calls and SMS through your twilio number and outbound dials only show as the twilio number, you will still get random calls that don't hit the twilio network. My sim's "real" number is a detroit number, and I used to get a handful of collections calls on it from the previous occupant of that number.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. This is definitely not a dumb question. In fact, all of us on the Super SIM team have really enjoyed reading this thread and learning what you have questions about! Super SIMs can be put into any device that has a SIM card slot, including almost any cell phone, but they are not designed to be a replacement for your cell phone’s SIM card. Super SIM is specialized for IoT: it doesn't support traditional circuit network components used for traditional voice calling or SMS so these won't work like you expect. However, any apps that use data instead for chat or VoIP calling, such as iMessage or WhatsApp, will work. Overall, we wouldn't recommend using your Super SIM as your regular SIM for your consumer cell phone, although some people at Twilio have put Twilio SIMs into their phones to see what this is like :)
adriand 6y ago
I've always thought it would be fun to make experimental hardware devices with this type of technology. An example: Build a solar-powered device that you stick up in a tree in a forested patch near an urban center where kids go and have bush parties/bonfires/etc. The device would include a text-to-speech synthesizer. It's dormant most of the time, but designed to activate when people are around it at night. As the "admin", you get a notification when it turns on and can receive some low-res video/audio from the scene, and you can send it messages that are read aloud using the TTS synth. I imagine it would be quite disconcerting if you were smoking pot in the woods and suddenly a voice in the trees started talking to you.
- dmix 6y ago
  Call the git repo "moses" or "burning-bush".
- somehnguy 6y ago
  While kinda funny to imagine up I would hope somewhere in the process between developing the hardware and physically hanging it in the tree you would have a 'oh no!' moment and realize just how creepy what you're doing is :)
- bttrfl 6y ago
  Attaching devices to trees is actually a serious challenge that people are working on in order to provide better fire detection systems. Major obstacle is charging and there were, unsuccessful AFAIK, attempts to charge them using the energy provided by trees themselves.
- Apofis 6y ago
  Brilliant! Get this man investments!
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    Who is going to fund a company whose business model involves making people hear mysterious voices from on high? Well, I suppose angel investors might.
ben174 6y ago
Any examples of getting one of these plugged into a Pi and having a script listen for SMS events and respond to them?
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-super-sim-raspberry-pi-sixfab-cellular-iot-hat https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-sup... One of their examples.
polishdude20 6y ago
What's the difference between an SMS command and just sending data? It says they charge 10 cents for a Mb but 5 cents for a data command. Can I just send a command that is less than a Mb and save money?
- Jarwain 6y ago
  It appears they charge by the byte, so it'd only be efficient to use SMS if the payload is greater than 512KB
  - toast0 6y ago
    SMS payload is 140 bytes. (160 characters with 7-bit characters)
- makaimc 6y ago
  Twilio Developer Evangelist here. Our Super SIM Product Manager @matjaxon had his comments held up since he has a new HN account so I'm passing this along from him: "You could send the same information to and from your devices using either SMS Commands or data but it would likely cost you a lot more to use SMS Commands. While our prices start at $0.10 per MB, we bill you in bytes. For example, if each time your device checks in you exchange 50 KB of data, you could do that 20 times for $0.10. You can only communicate with your device twice using SMS Commands at $0.05 per SMS Command. SMS Commands are often used as a way of configuring some IoT hardware solutions where you can set configuration values over SMS or to communicate with your device if it seems like something is going wrong with its data connection. It's an extra way of interacting with your device that may be deployed into the field thousands of mile away from you."
  - polishdude20 6y ago
    Ah ok, so it's not a thing you'd use for constantly sending commands.
sjtgraham 6y ago
Have been using these and they work really well. One thing though is because Twilio is the carrier the internet breakout is via AWS so you will have AWS public IP addresses. We went back to the original Twilio wireless because the breakout is on T-Mobile IP ranges.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Do you know what the latency is and whether they're doing some magic around roaming where the data session is terminated locally? Their previous offering always went out through T-Mobile in the US which always added an unnecessary round trip across the Atlantic if you were in Europe.
  - sjtgraham 6y ago
    I really don’t know the answer to that. The latency wasn’t noticeable for me but I’m in SF. Breakout was coming from us-east-1. I believe traffic will always go via Twilio anyway but I don’t know if they have a multi region setup. Interesting data point the “home network” on the SIMs we used was Telefonica.
ProZsolt 6y ago
Pricing: * Initial cost: $3/SIM * Monthly cost: $2/SIM (you can inactivate it at any time) * Data: $0.10 / MB * SMS: $0.01 / SMS Looks good for applications that only sends a small amount of data.
pheeney 6y ago
Could this be used as a sort of sporadic consumer phone service? For example signing up for services that require phone validation but want to protect your real phone for privacy. Activate the SIM, signup, verify, then deactivate. Repeat if they don't recognize your device or when you need to re-verify. After hardware costs you would be looking at $2/mo any time you needed it. Most other services I have looked at require a constant subscription. Or they are not a "real" number like google voice that can be detected and rejected. Or when you cancel and re-activate your previous phone number has changed so you can't re-verify without maintaining an active subscription. If the number is assigned to the sim then you can potentially rotate or have multiple numbers as well.
- gruez 6y ago
  I suspect the phone numbers will still show up as a voip number, which is probably be an issue for sms validation.
  - stqism 6y ago
    This will be an issue, fraud prevention systems targeted at reducing IRFS aren’t exactly a fan of VOIP numbers.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    There are carriers out there that sell "real" numbers at least here in the UK. I'm sure the same exists elsewhere.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  I have tried the same with their previous offering called "Programmable Wireless" and both voice support was lacking abroad and SMS had an issue where you can't send arbitrary caller IDs for SMSs sent to the SIM (so if you receive an SMS on a Twilio number but process it in your code before deciding whether to send it to a SIM, or receiving an SMS on a non-Twilio number).
bborud 6y ago
It is interesting to see how many telcos have failed at building IoT connectivity products that work. If you work for one of these, feel free to reach out. We will be open sourcing a server (written in Go with a Vue frontend) that can run on a regular private APN to provide developers with self service management and connectivity to their NB-IoT and LTE-M devices. If you want to have a look around you can take a peek at a beta of the software running at https://nbiot.engineering/ https://nbiot.engineering/
- mleonhard 6y ago
  A couple of suggestions for the landing page: 1) Explain what the product is, at the top of the page. 2) Remove the distracting animated background. 3) Switch out the graphic for "Shop" from a woman holding bags to a non-gendered icon. The page currently has three men working and one woman shopping. Some may think it portrays sexist attitudes.
  - bborud 6y ago
    Thanks for the feedback. I’m afraid we spent more time on the pages behind the login page and the backend code than the landing page. This is a useful reminder that we have to take more care when designing the new landing page.
  - bborud 6y ago
    btw, why do you say "woman"? What if that is a person with non-binary gender identity?
MichaelApproved 6y ago
@matjaxon - A lot of your comments here are getting deleted. If you're not deleting them yourself, I suspect it's because you're making a lot of comments with a new account and getting caught in the spam filter. Someone from HN should undelete your comments.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Thanks appreciate the heads up! I reached out to HN and they verified my account. Always ever been a lurker and made an account today. You were spot on about why they were getting caught in the filter.
ksec 6y ago
@Dang, I am seeing lots of valuable replies from @matjaxon from Twilio being shown as [dead]. I presume all these replies wont show up normally as most have their HN settings as default. I guess this is happening because it is a new account. ( Likely to combat Spam ).
lyime 6y ago
What hardware would you recommend?
- joeyspn 6y ago
  RasPi or Arduino
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Arduino's or RaspberryPis are solid platforms to get started with. We have a couple quickstarts that you can checkout too. https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fona-32u4 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fo... https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr-1400 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr...
VectorLock 6y ago
Do these services just support 1 or 2 sims? I can think of a few hacky projects to use these for. I think T-Mobile was going to start offering NB-IOT starting at $5 but I don't know how many minimum units or other stipulations they have.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. Our other cellular connectivity solution, Programmable Wireless, which we developed in partnership with T-Mobile, has a NB-IoT SIM that you can purchase from us if you’re interested in checking out T-Mobile’s narrowband network. If you don’t have any hardware, you can purchase a Developer Kit for the T-Mobile USA NB-IoT network from our Console which comes with some hardware and a NB-IoT SIM. https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband
  - VectorLock 6y ago
    Do you support accounts with 1 sim?
    - matjaxon 6y ago
      We don't have any minimums on accounts but there are normally a minimum number of SIM's come in an order depending on which item you're looking to get. The 2 flavors of Programmable Wireless SIMs, the normal one and the NB-IoT one, can be bought in "Starter Packs" that come with 3 SIMs that can be registered to any Twilio accounts. They don't have to be used with the same account so you can share them if you know anyone else interested in checking it out. As you scale up your solution you can get SIMs in orders as few as 10 that come preregistered to your account so you don't have to type in the registration codes for each one. If you need hardware to get started with you can buy the Developer Kit for the T-Mobile USA NB-IoT network from Console that comes with some hardware and 1 NB-IoT SIM that you can register to your Twilio account. For Super SIM, because we're in Beta, you can buy as few as 1 from our Console. That will come pre-registered to your account. Super SIM doesn't support Narrowband IoT but it does support an array of networks that do have LTE-M such as AT&T if you're interested in a similar but more widely adopted low power technology.
ilaksh 6y ago
What type of IoT device would I install this SIM in? Are there SBCs that come with a place to plug in a SIM and everything else needed to run it? I thought all of those types of things were made for phones. Edit: After some googling, found out about cellular IoT and GSM/GPRS modules for things like Arduino. Will that work with these Super SIMs?
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Yep Arduino's or RaspberryPis are solid platforms to get started with. We have a couple quickstarts that you can checkout. https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fona-32u4 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fo... https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr-1400 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr...
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    Just to confirm, but a GSM module won’t work for AT&T (but will for the time being for T-Mobile) in the US, right? To my knowledge, AT&T has shut down most (all?) of their GSM network and is only LTE (in its various flavors).
    - jsjohnst 6y ago
      Just to circle back here, seems the official date of AT&T shutting down their 2G (GSM/GPRS) happened in Jan 2017. Their 3G (HSDPA/UMTS) network is tentatively scheduled for about 1.5yrs from now. So my suggestion, if you’re building anything IoT like on AT&T, make sure you are using LTE-A, LTE-M, or NB-IoT for your radios or you’ll have a short operational life, if at all.
      - humancell 6y ago
        Yes ... I work for Twilio as an IoT SE - there are a lot of great and inexpensive modules that you can use. Stay away from anything 2G/3G as they are being shut down as bands are being reallocated. Also, avoid the "quad band" solutions that are advertised. I usually buy SIMCom modules from Ali Express. The SIM7000A or G, SIM7070G. The A is usually North American bands, and the G is global bands. There are E versions for Europe. These are CAT-M1 and NB-IoT modules, and I usually use the CAT-M. NB-IoT is a great idea, but depending on where in the world you are it might not exist. Also, Super SIM does not currently support NB-IoT. We have a different T-Mobile SIM for that. If you really want to go NB-IoT, then the SIM7020{x} is a good module to develop with, or the Quectel BC66. There are also some great projects now running code directly on the cellular modules. Search github for Wiz-IO. Georgi is brilliant in what he's doing, and supports numerous languages running directly on the Quectel modules.
xwdv 6y ago
Looks great, we're using a similar product for building a massive guerrilla network of solar powered IOT devices in strategic locations collecting some alternative data for hedge funds.
- 908087 6y ago
  Sweet, more creepy surveillance devices. > about: Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company Seems to check out.
yalogin 6y ago
So this does not provide the wireless stack just the sim. But with software SIMs these days why is a piece hardware needed? Is it a bit late to the party? Particularly for IoT devices, given the wireless stack is anyway needed along with the RF, it makes sense to cut out other SIM in favor of software.
- mallets 6y ago
  What do you mean by software SIM? I haven't heard or seen any such modules. eSIMs exist but still hardware. Maybe something based on SDRs can emulate them.
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paulcarroty 6y ago
Great service, a lot of ideas for usage. Does anybody use Twilio for banking 2FA? Many banks still use SMS and SIM card hijacking is easy nowadays.
celicaraptor 6y ago
How does this compare to buying some Internet with Legs sim cards which offer 200MB per month for free(includes Europe and USA) https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-X-THREE-3-NETWORK-INTERNET-WITH-LEGS-3G-4G-DATA-Sim-Cards-Wholesale-Job-lot/133250430852 https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-X-THREE-3-NETWORK-INTERNET-WITH-...
jamexcb 6y ago
Surfroam is 10x times cheaper for data! Is 0.01/MB https://surfroam.com/pages/rates https://surfroam.com/pages/rates No fancy online platform. But is a LOT cheaper. The card is 15€ but has 15€ of data!

262 points by samdung 6y ago

Is this intended for consumers or corporations? Could someone clarify the use-cases? It looks like it's $100+ for 1GB of data

JoshTriplett 6y ago
IoT devices don't use SIM cards for gigabytes of data; they use them for bytes and kilobytes of data. That's why this is billed by the byte.
brandon 6y ago
This is likely aimed at $device_manufacturer that wants to put a cellular modem into their device for remote telemetry (uploading a tiny payload every 24 hours for the lifetime on the device). There's a lot of attention in the docs towards "fleets" — they aren't expecting you to just buy one.
wrkronmiller 6y ago
I imagine it's best-suited for corporations making devices that can be deployed to arbitrary countries. It looks like you're paying an enormous premium on data for the ability for this sim to "just work" internationally. Another use case might be for tinkerers creating very low-bandwidth applications (e.g. a few megabytes/texts per month). For anyone else I imagine it makes more sense just to buy a prepaid SIM and swap it out as-needed.
- deleted 6y ago
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mrshadowgoose 6y ago
This is not intended for direct use by consumers. This is intended for devices that require internet connectivity, but might not have reliable access to a WiFi or wired network. Examples include: fleet management vehicle trackers, meteorology sensors, centrally controllable streetlamps These are commonly referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) applications. These devices typically use a very small amount of bandwidth (relative to a mobile phone user) but need the reliability of being able to roam across multiple networks. Hence the relatively steep $100/GB.
matjaxon 6y ago
Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM, and I can try to answer these questions: _Is this intended for consumers or corporations?_ It's for developers! We try not to look at our offerings as being strictly for consumers or corporations, but rather for the developers who use them, regardless of where they work. We want any developer with an IoT idea to be able to pursue it, whether their team is one person or one hundred. (This is a common philosophy at Twilio and was the thinking behind offering pay-as-you-go pricing on nearly all of our products.) _Could someone clarify the use-cases?_ Super SIM is designed for cellular IoT, where we often see use cases like fleet tracking, industrial field monitoring, or micromobility. But there are a lot of use cases for cellular, with new ones showing up every day. An interesting trend we’ve seen is the use of cellular connectivity for things like point-of-sale systems in places where you normally expect there to be Wi-Fi. By using cellular connectivity, these point-of-sale platforms are able to eliminate the variability that comes with each different customer’s Wi-Fi setup, offering their customers a much better out-of-the-box experience because their customers can simply turn on the system and get connected. _It looks like it's $100+ for 1GB of data_ Our data prices start at $0.10 per MB but this pricing is meant to just get you started. We don’t expect any of our developers to scale up their IoT business at these list prices. Once you’re up and running, you can connect with one of our IoT sales specialists to discuss volume discounts.

cordite 6y ago

Viewing this site took 4.5MB with trackers. That's half a dollar of data. Now I understand that IOT stuff would likely have smaller payloads. But that really looks like a great way to rack up costs with a run away program submitting or retrieving data in a bad loop.

sb8244 6y ago
I wonder if this will be like Programmable Wireless where you can get cheaper data rates for different levels of commit. Their pricing page says "starts at" and doesn't really go into how they handle bulk discount. If this really is the pricing, then it's definitely IOT focused instead of Programmable Wireless's more general focus.
- matjaxon 6y ago
  Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. Glad you're familiar with Programmable Wireless, our other cellular connectivity offering! The “starts at” that we have on our pricing page is for the cheapest priced networks we have in each country. For example, in the UK we have a number of networks that are $0.10 per MB but if you want to use EE it’s $0.20 per MB. With our Network Access Profiles, you can pick exactly which networks you want your Super SIMs to be able to connect to. If EE is the only network that services your area or works best with your hardware and is worth premium to use, you can enable it for your Super SIMs. For now, we just have a pay-as-you-go pricing plan for Super SIM whereas Programmable Wireless has a number of different quota plans that let you commit to a minimum monthly spend per SIM in exchange for discounts as a way for you to self service into lower data costs for hungrier devices. Our pay-as-you-go prices are meant to just get you started. We don’t expect any of our developers to scale up their IoT business at these list prices. Once you’re up and running, you can connect with one of our IoT sales specialists to discuss volume discounts. Promise they don’t bite!
gk1 6y ago
Pretty sure you could set limits or alerts on bandwidth usage to avoid that.
6y ago

Nextgrid 6y ago

Curious as to how does this compare to "Programmable Wireless" and whether it supports calls and SMS? It's not clear whether it's an evolution of Programmable Wireless or something totally separate. I tend towards the latter because the documentation is separate between both offerings. Last time I tried Programmable Wireless it was very lacking. Calls were not supported on roaming at all (so I couldn't test it as I'm outside the US) and SMS was very flaky; some texts outright bypassed the SMS to API routing and were handled by the upstream carrier directly. There was also a "bug" where you couldn't send SMS to the SIM using an arbitrary originator number. I say bug in quotes because I'm sure there is some obscure reason for it (or is it to cover a limitation?) because the error code returned was custom and seemed explicitly made for this reason (and was not mentioned on any docs). I understand it was in early beta when I tried it but none of these issues were resolved even years later.

deleted 6y ago
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sjtgraham 6y ago
Super SIM is on Twilio’s own core networking stack rather than being a shim on top of T-Mobile. Presumably these issues would be resolved with Super SIM. (I don’t know if they have been yet)
matjaxon 6y ago
Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. It’s great to hear that you tested out Programmable Wireless and your feedback is appreciated. _How does Super SIM compare to Programmable Wireless?_ Super SIM is a separate offering from Programmable Wireless. Our first IoT connectivity solution, Programmable Wireless, was developed in partnership with T-Mobile, allowing us to connect to T-Mobile’s global partner network and run on top of T-Mobile’s mobile core infrastructure. For Super SIM, we developed our own cloud scale mobile core that allows us to connect with multiple partners, offering a comprehensive, guaranteed list of tier-1 networks for your devices to connect to. Moreover, with Super SIM, we’re able to extend control to you as the developer by letting you choose which networks your Super SIMs can and cannot connect to. This is really important for IoT use cases where your hardware may not be compatible with all of the networks that are available in a country. While we offer a lot of our networks at the same price, there are some that may be more costly but can offer you more redundant coverage or coverage in more remote regions. You can choose which networks work best for your use case and your customers and take control of your connectivity. _Does Super SIM support voice calling and SMS?_ Super SIM was designed with IoT use cases in mind that primarily use data. You can use our SMS Commands API to send machine-to-machine SMS between your device and your cloud but Super SIM does not support sending or receiving SMS from other phone numbers. Super SIM does not support traditional calling such as with a smartphone’s native dialer. _Why can’t I send SMS with an arbitrary originator number with Programmable Wireless SIMs? Is this a bug?_ This is the intended behavior. When you send a SMS from a phone’s messaging apps with Programmable Wireless SIMs that message gets handled by Twilio’s Programmable SMS APIs. You cannot set the from number on those messages to a phone number that is not a Twilio phone number that you own. This prevents number spoofing which while it has valid uses, it’s often used for SMS spamming which Twilio takes very seriously so this is a limitation to that feature.

bredren 6y ago

I worked on IoT projects for two major wireless carriers both trying to sell hardware integrated with data management. I think the idea was to sort of create value-added services on top of the dumb pipe. Both companies invested heavily in the projects and both failed badly. One of the major issues was just getting a dev setup using all the proprietary stuff involved. Onboarding developers was just one issue. Both systems tied together a bunch of partners, and the folks running both shows had no technical background. Nor their managers. Order the SIM from the console makes things pretty easy. Twilio has consistently delivered easy ways to access cell stuff. This is def a step in the right direction. It would be awesome to tinker with this product for sensor data.

deleted 6y ago
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Nextgrid 6y ago

If you're interested in this space, Hologram does the same thing (and appears to have had a head start compared to Twilio): https://hologram.io https://hologram.io

akulkarni 6y ago
Was going to post the same thing. I wonder how the two compare. Pricing-wise, seems like Twilio has higher fixed but lower usage costs: https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim | Starting at $2 per active Super SIM per month. | Data Usage - Starting at $0.10 / MB. https://hologram.io/pricing/ https://hologram.io/pricing/ | $1 per device per month + $0.38 / MB. Of course these prices depend on device volume. Twilio may be able to offer lower costs because of their scale, but perhaps Hologram can provide a better user experience because this is the only thing they do.
- kimi 6y ago
  I'm frankly appalled at $0.10/MB. Are we still in the 90's?
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    These devices are essentially roaming wherever they are. The use case is that you're sending far smaller data than a megabyte in even a day - maybe a GPS update once an hour, that sort of thing.
  - thrwaway69 6y ago
    A single visit to one of the apple's product landing page would cost - $5. Doesn't seem too bad to me.
  - Ductapemaster 6y ago
    I work for an IoT company, and I can tell you that data costs are high for IoT because the cost model is different. You purchase a 10GB plan from AT&T for your cell phone and they know that you likely won't use it all, so they can "oversell" data. With IoT, you have a much better handle on how much data you use so when you purchase a 10MB plan, they know you will use almost all of it. Additionally, IoT devices tend to have higher backend infrastructure costs as they often connect/disconnect from the towers as they wake up and go to sleep, or move around between towers /carriers a lot. Plus the "always roaming" statement above adds cost in exchange for flexibility. It's just a different business altogether.

jtdev 6y ago

Think cargo ship containers and other similar internationally transient use cases. Sounds like an exciting product/service. Looking forward to seeing how this is used.

gk1 6y ago
Trucks, containers, ships, cars... But also anything that is centrally manufactured or managed but distributed globally. Imagine being able to buy and manage SIMs from one place regardless of whether your [connected thing] will be deployed in United States or in Timor-Leste.

gk1 6y ago

Looks like a killer of all other IoT connectivity solutions (eg, Verizon, AT&T, Particle). Those IoT platforms better find a way to support third-party SIMs, if they don't already. Source: Consulted AT&T on bringing their IoT Connectivity solution to market. Their huge cell network was the main selling point; the platform and services were add-ons. Edit: Another commenter mentioned Hologram, which already has a global Sim and therefore a lead start. I haven't watched this space for a few years and forgot about them. Good for them!

elwes5 6y ago
I know the Verizon one does. It just is not on their pages. The platform they bought from Qualcomm to do it was in that same space as Twilio. Been a few years though they may have ripped it out by this point. 10 cents per MB and 5 cents per SMS. Ouch!
Gamemaster1379 6y ago
Particle has a number of devices that already support third party SIMs (their Electron and Boron lines in particular). Particle also has partnered with Twilio in the past. I know there was some legacy integration with Twilio SIMs. Particle's value prop is an IoT platform where cellular connectivity is a component. If anything, this seems like it would be complimentary and not a killer to their value prop.
- gk1 6y ago
  Valid point. I mean this kills their connectivity offering, which in my AT&T example was the core thing. Sounds like Particle now treats connectivity as a commodity and focuses on the platform. Good decision.
- Ductapemaster 6y ago
  Thanks for the mention! I'm an employee at Particle, and this is exactly it. I'll be honest and say that dealing with carriers sucks. If you want to bring your IoT device to market, you want to focus on building that device — not negotiating with AT&T or Verizon. We protect our users from that so you can focus on your core competencies and shipping your products. We leverage our large deployed base of devices for negotiations in a way that you cannot if you are a single IoT business. We've actually had customers use Particle, decide they wanted to do their own thing for cost/complexity reasons, start a relationship with the carriers, and come running back because it was intractable for them.

Animats 6y ago

So, it's a VPN for cellular data, right?

gk1 6y ago
How did you arrive at that? It's a SIM to enable IoT devices to connect to (almost) any available network. It is not cloaking the origin of the data, or even if it is, that's not why companies will buy this.
- Animats 6y ago
  That's what a virtual private network is - an overlay on transport networks to allow a group of devices under the same ownership to communicate. While VPNs are often used to cloak IP addresses, they were originally a corporate thing. Your in-house net could be transported over the public Internet while keeping its in-house address space and some degree of privacy.
neximo64 6y ago
So, human beings are basically apes, right?

rsync 6y ago

No verizon support, unfortunately ... https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/available-networks#north-america https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/available-networks#...

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Are there any geo areas where ATT+TMO/Sprint (combined due to merger) isn't at parity with VZ?
- bob12co 6y ago
  I live in a mountainous area, and there is a very large difference. So much so that VZ is basically my only option. I think what happens is that tower leases in some protected areas can be hard to negotiate, so the cost/benefit ratio gets out of whack for new towers (amongst other issues with power, construction, and RF propagation in remote, mountain areas). Maybe someone with more knowledge can chime in.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Towers are typically owned by a REIT (real estate investment trust) or other entity that develops the tower and telco/equipment shelter and then leases out space on the tower to mobile providers (cost is higher to the mobile provider the higher you want to be on the tower). In some locations, there just isn't any land to site the tower due to regs (national parks comes to mind, nothing except my Iridium hotspot works in parts of the Smokey Mountains), so there are no providers or a single provider who was able to swing a special case on an existing tower (water tower or similar).
- avree 6y ago
  Yes, many. Verizon is still the only option for reception in many areas—I live in Los Altos Hills, and the only provider with reception for much of the town is Verizon.
matjaxon 6y ago
Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. You’re right, we currently don’t have support for Verizon but we hope to be able to add it in the future. We understand that different developers have different connectivity preferences, so we designed our system to be flexible to adding new partners to the platform. As we continue to add networks, the networks of the future should become available to Super SIMs bought today. With Super SIM you can also have access to multiple networks at once. For example, if you’re connected to T-Mobile and move to an area where there isn’t coverage, your device can automatically switch over to AT&T. This gives you redundant connectivity too in case any one network or tower goes down.

xrisk 6y ago

Could a potential use case be soldering these onto consumer electronics and phoning home telemetry even if the user doesn’t connect to WiFi?

Jtsummers 6y ago
Yes. So long as you have a subscription service (or are willing to eat the cost). This is how many home security systems handle things these days. No need for a phone line (which can be cut) or wifi (which is lost with a power outage). A control panel and the sensors have batteries that continue operating despite power loss and network outages.
mrshadowgoose 6y ago
Potentially yes. This is just a SIM card, so one would additionally need to have a modem, consistent power source and space for all of these extra items. The value of the telemetry would need to be worth several dollars / month over several years to justify this.
Ductapemaster 6y ago
A powerful use case here is at-home medical devices (think blood glucose monitors). With a SIM and cellular service, they can work anywhere, be agnostic to consumer WiFi issues (oops, someone changed the WiFi password!), and give "real-time" updates to a doctor or other health professional. Getting patient data has a huge barrier today and there is a ton of room for improvement, leaving the door open to better/more proactive care.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Apologies if this is a dumb question - can I use this on a person phone for consumer use cases (voice/text/data)?

wrkronmiller 6y ago
You would probably rack up hundreds or thousands of dollars per month in data charges.
skrtskrt 6y ago
Yes but the data is crazy expensive for that use case. Companies that offer this aggregate connectivity through carriers across many countries which can vary widely in price, so they have to price in order to protect themselves in case someone only uses it in (insert most expensive region). So you're paying premium for it to work many places. And it's intended for small data chunks that would be sent by things like IOT sensor clusters. If you know you're only going to use it in (these N regions) you could possibly work with them to get a better rate and have them blacklist your traffic in the more expensive regions.
bwooceli 6y ago
you can use their normal programmable wireless for that. I did and pay $1/month to have a sim sit in a $30 Nokia dumbphone that the kids can use when they ride their bikes to the park. There are ... quirks. Turns out the SIM cards have a "real" phone number that you don't know about, so even though you're routing calls and SMS through your twilio number and outbound dials only show as the twilio number, you will still get random calls that don't hit the twilio network. My sim's "real" number is a detroit number, and I used to get a handful of collections calls on it from the previous occupant of that number.
matjaxon 6y ago
Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. This is definitely not a dumb question. In fact, all of us on the Super SIM team have really enjoyed reading this thread and learning what you have questions about! Super SIMs can be put into any device that has a SIM card slot, including almost any cell phone, but they are not designed to be a replacement for your cell phone’s SIM card. Super SIM is specialized for IoT: it doesn't support traditional circuit network components used for traditional voice calling or SMS so these won't work like you expect. However, any apps that use data instead for chat or VoIP calling, such as iMessage or WhatsApp, will work. Overall, we wouldn't recommend using your Super SIM as your regular SIM for your consumer cell phone, although some people at Twilio have put Twilio SIMs into their phones to see what this is like :)

adriand 6y ago

I've always thought it would be fun to make experimental hardware devices with this type of technology. An example: Build a solar-powered device that you stick up in a tree in a forested patch near an urban center where kids go and have bush parties/bonfires/etc. The device would include a text-to-speech synthesizer. It's dormant most of the time, but designed to activate when people are around it at night. As the "admin", you get a notification when it turns on and can receive some low-res video/audio from the scene, and you can send it messages that are read aloud using the TTS synth. I imagine it would be quite disconcerting if you were smoking pot in the woods and suddenly a voice in the trees started talking to you.

dmix 6y ago
Call the git repo "moses" or "burning-bush".
somehnguy 6y ago
While kinda funny to imagine up I would hope somewhere in the process between developing the hardware and physically hanging it in the tree you would have a 'oh no!' moment and realize just how creepy what you're doing is :)
bttrfl 6y ago
Attaching devices to trees is actually a serious challenge that people are working on in order to provide better fire detection systems. Major obstacle is charging and there were, unsuccessful AFAIK, attempts to charge them using the energy provided by trees themselves.
Apofis 6y ago
Brilliant! Get this man investments!
- dane-pgp 6y ago
  Who is going to fund a company whose business model involves making people hear mysterious voices from on high? Well, I suppose angel investors might.

ben174 6y ago

Any examples of getting one of these plugged into a Pi and having a script listen for SMS events and respond to them?

Jtsummers 6y ago
https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-super-sim-raspberry-pi-sixfab-cellular-iot-hat https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim/getting-started-sup... One of their examples.

polishdude20 6y ago

What's the difference between an SMS command and just sending data? It says they charge 10 cents for a Mb but 5 cents for a data command. Can I just send a command that is less than a Mb and save money?

Jarwain 6y ago
It appears they charge by the byte, so it'd only be efficient to use SMS if the payload is greater than 512KB
- toast0 6y ago
  SMS payload is 140 bytes. (160 characters with 7-bit characters)
makaimc 6y ago
Twilio Developer Evangelist here. Our Super SIM Product Manager @matjaxon had his comments held up since he has a new HN account so I'm passing this along from him: "You could send the same information to and from your devices using either SMS Commands or data but it would likely cost you a lot more to use SMS Commands. While our prices start at $0.10 per MB, we bill you in bytes. For example, if each time your device checks in you exchange 50 KB of data, you could do that 20 times for $0.10. You can only communicate with your device twice using SMS Commands at $0.05 per SMS Command. SMS Commands are often used as a way of configuring some IoT hardware solutions where you can set configuration values over SMS or to communicate with your device if it seems like something is going wrong with its data connection. It's an extra way of interacting with your device that may be deployed into the field thousands of mile away from you."
- polishdude20 6y ago
  Ah ok, so it's not a thing you'd use for constantly sending commands.

sjtgraham 6y ago

Have been using these and they work really well. One thing though is because Twilio is the carrier the internet breakout is via AWS so you will have AWS public IP addresses. We went back to the original Twilio wireless because the breakout is on T-Mobile IP ranges.

Nextgrid 6y ago
Do you know what the latency is and whether they're doing some magic around roaming where the data session is terminated locally? Their previous offering always went out through T-Mobile in the US which always added an unnecessary round trip across the Atlantic if you were in Europe.
- sjtgraham 6y ago
  I really don’t know the answer to that. The latency wasn’t noticeable for me but I’m in SF. Breakout was coming from us-east-1. I believe traffic will always go via Twilio anyway but I don’t know if they have a multi region setup. Interesting data point the “home network” on the SIMs we used was Telefonica.

ProZsolt 6y ago

Pricing: * Initial cost: $3/SIM * Monthly cost: $2/SIM (you can inactivate it at any time) * Data: $0.10 / MB * SMS: $0.01 / SMS Looks good for applications that only sends a small amount of data.

pheeney 6y ago

Could this be used as a sort of sporadic consumer phone service? For example signing up for services that require phone validation but want to protect your real phone for privacy. Activate the SIM, signup, verify, then deactivate. Repeat if they don't recognize your device or when you need to re-verify. After hardware costs you would be looking at $2/mo any time you needed it. Most other services I have looked at require a constant subscription. Or they are not a "real" number like google voice that can be detected and rejected. Or when you cancel and re-activate your previous phone number has changed so you can't re-verify without maintaining an active subscription. If the number is assigned to the sim then you can potentially rotate or have multiple numbers as well.

gruez 6y ago
I suspect the phone numbers will still show up as a voip number, which is probably be an issue for sms validation.
- stqism 6y ago
  This will be an issue, fraud prevention systems targeted at reducing IRFS aren’t exactly a fan of VOIP numbers.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  There are carriers out there that sell "real" numbers at least here in the UK. I'm sure the same exists elsewhere.
Nextgrid 6y ago
I have tried the same with their previous offering called "Programmable Wireless" and both voice support was lacking abroad and SMS had an issue where you can't send arbitrary caller IDs for SMSs sent to the SIM (so if you receive an SMS on a Twilio number but process it in your code before deciding whether to send it to a SIM, or receiving an SMS on a non-Twilio number).

bborud 6y ago

It is interesting to see how many telcos have failed at building IoT connectivity products that work. If you work for one of these, feel free to reach out. We will be open sourcing a server (written in Go with a Vue frontend) that can run on a regular private APN to provide developers with self service management and connectivity to their NB-IoT and LTE-M devices. If you want to have a look around you can take a peek at a beta of the software running at https://nbiot.engineering/ https://nbiot.engineering/

mleonhard 6y ago
A couple of suggestions for the landing page: 1) Explain what the product is, at the top of the page. 2) Remove the distracting animated background. 3) Switch out the graphic for "Shop" from a woman holding bags to a non-gendered icon. The page currently has three men working and one woman shopping. Some may think it portrays sexist attitudes.
- bborud 6y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. I’m afraid we spent more time on the pages behind the login page and the backend code than the landing page. This is a useful reminder that we have to take more care when designing the new landing page.
- bborud 6y ago
  btw, why do you say "woman"? What if that is a person with non-binary gender identity?

MichaelApproved 6y ago

@matjaxon - A lot of your comments here are getting deleted. If you're not deleting them yourself, I suspect it's because you're making a lot of comments with a new account and getting caught in the spam filter. Someone from HN should undelete your comments.

matjaxon 6y ago
Thanks appreciate the heads up! I reached out to HN and they verified my account. Always ever been a lurker and made an account today. You were spot on about why they were getting caught in the filter.

ksec 6y ago

@Dang, I am seeing lots of valuable replies from @matjaxon from Twilio being shown as [dead]. I presume all these replies wont show up normally as most have their HN settings as default. I guess this is happening because it is a new account. ( Likely to combat Spam ).

lyime 6y ago

What hardware would you recommend?

joeyspn 6y ago
RasPi or Arduino
matjaxon 6y ago
Arduino's or RaspberryPis are solid platforms to get started with. We have a couple quickstarts that you can checkout too. https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fona-32u4 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fo... https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr-1400 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr...

VectorLock 6y ago

Do these services just support 1 or 2 sims? I can think of a few hacky projects to use these for. I think T-Mobile was going to start offering NB-IOT starting at $5 but I don't know how many minimum units or other stipulations they have.

matjaxon 6y ago
Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. Our other cellular connectivity solution, Programmable Wireless, which we developed in partnership with T-Mobile, has a NB-IoT SIM that you can purchase from us if you’re interested in checking out T-Mobile’s narrowband network. If you don’t have any hardware, you can purchase a Developer Kit for the T-Mobile USA NB-IoT network from our Console which comes with some hardware and a NB-IoT SIM. https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband
- VectorLock 6y ago
  Do you support accounts with 1 sim?
  - matjaxon 6y ago
    We don't have any minimums on accounts but there are normally a minimum number of SIM's come in an order depending on which item you're looking to get. The 2 flavors of Programmable Wireless SIMs, the normal one and the NB-IoT one, can be bought in "Starter Packs" that come with 3 SIMs that can be registered to any Twilio accounts. They don't have to be used with the same account so you can share them if you know anyone else interested in checking it out. As you scale up your solution you can get SIMs in orders as few as 10 that come preregistered to your account so you don't have to type in the registration codes for each one. If you need hardware to get started with you can buy the Developer Kit for the T-Mobile USA NB-IoT network from Console that comes with some hardware and 1 NB-IoT SIM that you can register to your Twilio account. For Super SIM, because we're in Beta, you can buy as few as 1 from our Console. That will come pre-registered to your account. Super SIM doesn't support Narrowband IoT but it does support an array of networks that do have LTE-M such as AT&T if you're interested in a similar but more widely adopted low power technology.

ilaksh 6y ago

What type of IoT device would I install this SIM in? Are there SBCs that come with a place to plug in a SIM and everything else needed to run it? I thought all of those types of things were made for phones. Edit: After some googling, found out about cellular IoT and GSM/GPRS modules for things like Arduino. Will that work with these Super SIMs?

matjaxon 6y ago
Yep Arduino's or RaspberryPis are solid platforms to get started with. We have a couple quickstarts that you can checkout. https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fona-32u4 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-adafruit-fo... https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr-1400 https://www.twilio.com/blog/super-sim-quickstart-arduino-mkr...
- jsjohnst 6y ago
  Just to confirm, but a GSM module won’t work for AT&T (but will for the time being for T-Mobile) in the US, right? To my knowledge, AT&T has shut down most (all?) of their GSM network and is only LTE (in its various flavors).
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    Just to circle back here, seems the official date of AT&T shutting down their 2G (GSM/GPRS) happened in Jan 2017. Their 3G (HSDPA/UMTS) network is tentatively scheduled for about 1.5yrs from now. So my suggestion, if you’re building anything IoT like on AT&T, make sure you are using LTE-A, LTE-M, or NB-IoT for your radios or you’ll have a short operational life, if at all.
    - humancell 6y ago
      Yes ... I work for Twilio as an IoT SE - there are a lot of great and inexpensive modules that you can use. Stay away from anything 2G/3G as they are being shut down as bands are being reallocated. Also, avoid the "quad band" solutions that are advertised. I usually buy SIMCom modules from Ali Express. The SIM7000A or G, SIM7070G. The A is usually North American bands, and the G is global bands. There are E versions for Europe. These are CAT-M1 and NB-IoT modules, and I usually use the CAT-M. NB-IoT is a great idea, but depending on where in the world you are it might not exist. Also, Super SIM does not currently support NB-IoT. We have a different T-Mobile SIM for that. If you really want to go NB-IoT, then the SIM7020{x} is a good module to develop with, or the Quectel BC66. There are also some great projects now running code directly on the cellular modules. Search github for Wiz-IO. Georgi is brilliant in what he's doing, and supports numerous languages running directly on the Quectel modules.

xwdv 6y ago

Looks great, we're using a similar product for building a massive guerrilla network of solar powered IOT devices in strategic locations collecting some alternative data for hedge funds.

908087 6y ago
Sweet, more creepy surveillance devices. > about: Ethically challenged software engineer working for a major tech company Seems to check out.

yalogin 6y ago

So this does not provide the wireless stack just the sim. But with software SIMs these days why is a piece hardware needed? Is it a bit late to the party? Particularly for IoT devices, given the wireless stack is anyway needed along with the RF, it makes sense to cut out other SIM in favor of software.

mallets 6y ago
What do you mean by software SIM? I haven't heard or seen any such modules. eSIMs exist but still hardware. Maybe something based on SDRs can emulate them.

deleted 6y ago

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paulcarroty 6y ago

Great service, a lot of ideas for usage. Does anybody use Twilio for banking 2FA? Many banks still use SMS and SIM card hijacking is easy nowadays.

celicaraptor 6y ago

How does this compare to buying some Internet with Legs sim cards which offer 200MB per month for free(includes Europe and USA) https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-X-THREE-3-NETWORK-INTERNET-WITH-LEGS-3G-4G-DATA-Sim-Cards-Wholesale-Job-lot/133250430852 https://www.ebay.com/itm/10-X-THREE-3-NETWORK-INTERNET-WITH-...

jamexcb 6y ago

Surfroam is 10x times cheaper for data! Is 0.01/MB https://surfroam.com/pages/rates https://surfroam.com/pages/rates No fancy online platform. But is a LOT cheaper. The card is 15€ but has 15€ of data!