Recent Expansion of the Cisco-NTT DATA Partnerships Puts eSIM at the Center of Enterprise 5G, but Leaves Out Vital Questions About Managing Industrial Hardware

On November 25, 2024, Cisco and NTT DATA announced an expansion to their existing partnership on enterprise 5G, which integrates Cisco’s Embedded Subscriber Identity Module (eSIM) technology with NTT DATA’s Transatel network. The expanded collaboration will allow enterprises—predominantly in industries such as financial services, retail, hospitality, and manufacturing—to provision, configure, and manage 5G devices more efficiently across the 180 countries where NTT DATA is present through its Transatel network. By combining on-demand services like a Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), 5G scaling, and edge computing, the two companies aim to simplify enterprise 5G deployments considerably.

This partnership between Cisco and NTT DATA is interesting from several perspectives, as it brings a few new assets to the enterprise cellular discussion. First, with Cisco using the spectrum assets of NTT DATA-owned Transatel, it is the first major enterprise cellular announcement with a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). Enterprises often require connectivity across multiple sites, so the multinational footprint of NTT DATA through its Transatel network allows it to offer specialized, tailored services to businesses across countries without roaming agreement—an important competitive advantage over traditional carriers.

More importantly, however, it is the first announcement that aims to use eSIM technology for enterprise 5G. As the main value proposition of eSIM lies in its ability to enable remote provisioning and activation of SIM profiles, it will provide enterprises with an easier opportunity to automatically configure devices, allowing them to seamlessly manage many devices across multiple locations, reducing the need for physical Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards and minimizing operational complexities.

While this announcement is a step in the right direction for easing device provisioning and network management, it is subject to significant limitations as well.

First, the use of eSIM will only be beneficial for devices that already support traditional SIM functionality. Realistically, this applies to consumer-like devices, such as handhelds, tablets, or smartphones. On the other hand, enterprise-specific equipment—particularly in industrial environments—typically does not rely on SIM-based connectivity and may require entirely different approaches for integration into private networks.

Second, enterprises primarily consider cellular connectivity for hazardous environments and highly critical applications—predominantly delivered through private networks because of stringent security requirements. Therefore, device authentication is of utmost importance. O-the-Air (OTA) provisioning of devices might create additional compliance and regulatory issues that would have to be addressed.

As the recent NTT DATA & Cisco news shows, eSIMs can be a great tool to ease the complexity of managing a private network and the associated devices. It is important to note, however, that this beneficial effect will only come into place AFTER enterprises have decided to use enterprise 5G. However, the primary bottleneck, at this point, is convincing enterprises to deploy a private cellular network in the first place.

As the previous section argued, applying eSIMs to private network deployments might ease the provisioning of certain devices for enterprise-grade cellular, but it does not magically address all device-related bottlenecks that keep enterprises from deploying 5G.

One of the key barriers to adopting 5G connectivity remains the immature device ecosystem. There have undeniably been significant strides within the space, with a number of partnerships and device manufacturer activities (e.g., NTT DATA & Zebra, Pepperl & Fuchs, Ericsson and its device partnership network) occurring within the past year. However, chipset manufacturers still need to push for developing Release 16-capable industrial-grade chipsets to provide the industry with the much-needed capabilities they were promised with the advent of 5G.

Enterprises, however, typically operate on decades-long investment cycles, which means their existing devices were not designed to support modern technologies like private cellular networks, and therefore, not all of these devices are capable of connecting to such networks. Consequently, the telco industry, as well as System Integrators (SIs), need to put a lot more emphasis on developing solutions that allow enterprises to retrofit their equipment with cellular capabilities to be able to connect them to a private 5G network. This requires expertise from two different domains:

1. Suppliers of enterprise-grade 5G will have to understand the architecture of (industrial) devices and how they can be physically retrofitted with a 5G module. This includes working with legacy equipment and ensuring that devices, even those that were not originally designed with cellular connectivity, can be adapted to work within modern private 5G environments.
2. Suppliers will also need to understand how to integrate the capabilities of these retrofitted devices into a 5G network—regardless of the network architecture used (public, private, or hybrid). This means ensuring that the private network infrastructure can seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise Information Technology (IT) systems, including guaranteeing compatibility with the network's security, data protocols, and management systems.