Vodafone IoT Links Its GDSP to Simetric’s Platform with New Strategy in Full Effect

In September 2025, connectivity provider Vodafone IoT unveiled a new strategic partnership with platform vendor Simetric. Vodafone IoT will integrate its Global Data Service Platform (GDSP), a dedicated Connectivity Management Platform (CMP) for the Internet of Things (IoT), with the commercially available Simetric Platform, to create a “single-pane-of-glass” overview for Vodafone customers. This will allow enterprises to manage IoT connectivity, purchased regionally or multi-regionally from multiple providers, centrally through a single interface. Vodafone IoT claims to be able to provide connectivity in 180 countries and across 760 networks, with a determined focus on pushing flexibility as its Unique Selling Point (USP). Cellular, satellite, and Low-Power Wide Area (LPWA) connections using all types of Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) and provisioning methods will be managed together.

Vodafone IoT was carved out as a separate business by the Vodafone Group in April 2024, in a plan that was several years in the making. Vodafone’s “serious” modern day foray into IoT was initiated with the launch of its GDSP in mid-2009. After the creation of Vodafone IoT, the company had an accumulated installed base of 187 million IoT connections (as of the first calendar quarter in 2024), having grown the business at a 32% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) to become the world’s largest IoT carrier. For the majority of this time, Vodafone’s IoT business was consciously promoted under the auspices of exclusivity. Vodafone acted alone and created everything by itself, insisting on custom development and the acquisition of key assets, instead of engaging in partnerships.

The GDSP was developed from scratch deliberately so that Vodafone could have full control over the timing of software version revisions, and the consequent creation and launch of new features, in order to offer functionality that its rivals could not. This occurred in an environment where carriers would only license third-party CMPs from Cisco and Ericsson, believing it to be too expensive and too difficult to develop something in-house on a live network for a connectivity market that had yet to prove its worth. Two IoT roaming power blocks subsequently developed, based on the interoperability afforded by the use of those two common platforms, with new ways to undermine Vodafone’s expansive international footprint always at the forefront of other carriers’ IoT strategies.

Vodafone spent in excess of US$200 million between 2011 and 2020 acquiring mature companies with specialist expertise intended to propel the carrier beyond IoT connectivity and into the realm of IoT solutions and vertical services. Vodafone was an IoT monolith that eschewed the collaborative nature of embedded SIM (eSIM), for example, preferring its own Global SIM powered by a non-geographic 901-based Mobile Network Code (MNC) issued by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). But after 2020, this near bloody-minded “one against the world” mentality lost momentum, and by 2022, plans for a new agile approach were afoot: a simplified, targeted focus on connectivity alone, and to actively seek out partnerships to maximize enterprise reach and sales channels. This new alignment with Simetric is a textbook example.

With 215 million IoT connections at the end of 2Q 2025,  28 million more than when it was spun out, Vodafone IoT has doubled the number of IoT devices served during the last 5 years. Any criticism faced, or concerns that may have existed about the viability of the standalone business, and its ability to continue the momentum that had been built in the 15 years prior were nullified. The Vodafone Group still owns, and will always own, a majority share of Vodafone IoT, but the leaner, independent organization now has the freedom to ally with whomever it wishes, be it other carriers or other platform providers, to augment the network connectivity it still leases from its parent, and the powerful, differentiated GDSP it inherited.

In Vodafone’s words, the Simetric partnership will allow the delivery of, “real-time visibility, control, and automation across customers’ IoT estates from a variety of network partners.” This is not something that the pre-carved-out Vodafone would ever have entertained, but is something that the new Vodafone IoT purposely exists to make possible, and to capitalize on. IoT connectivity customers may buy from different providers at different times in different regions as and when they need to. It is pointless to insist on being the sole provider, or to expect customers to switch when needing connectivity for a specific situation, while already adequately being served elsewhere. It also risks losing potential business for a portion of their needs, which could grow to more or even all in the future.

Collaboration is necessary for further growth for Vodafone IoT, and Simetric already partners with U.S. carrier AT&T, and the IoT Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) Tata Communications, Soracom, Kore, and M2M Data Connect—a network of “co-opetition.” With connectivity at all costs as the only target in Vodafone IoT’s crosshairs, vertical solutions having remained with its parent group, growing its own network, maximizing interoperability, and pricing keenly as always will be vital in a market where margins are low and volume is what matters. Other IoT service provider need to be cogent that as a “frenemy” Vodafone IoT will push harder and be more competitive than ever. Indeed, some may be best off focusing on the vertical solutions that Vodafone IoT has left behind, and partnering with it to take away the hassle of negotiating their own connectivity provider relationships.