Eseye launched its 2025 IoT Predictions Report, coinciding with the 50th episode of its IoT Leaders podcast. Commemorating its sixth year, the annual report authored by Eseye’s CEO Nick Earle and Co-Founder and CTO Ian Marsden has identified three key trends anticipated to reshape the IoT and telecom landscape.
“The future of IoT is not a static landscape; it is a dynamic environment driven by flexibility, innovation, and convergence. 2025 will mark a pivotal moment in IoT’s evolution,” commented Nick Earle, CEO of Eseye. “For MNOs to thrive in IoT, we believe they should adopt a federated approach to IoT connectivity which will create a much more viable economic model. NB-IoT will fall out of favour in most regions due to its siloed infrastructure and limited revenue potential, while AIoT will rise in adoption and play a critical role in intelligently optimising connectivity across devices and networks.”
These key trends include:
1. MNOs must evolve to retain market control for success
Traditional IoT platforms lack the flexibility to support global eUICC-compliant multi-operator connectivity for enterprise customers, creating an urgent need for MNOs to adopt new solutions.
“We will see a new breed of MNO IoT platform that solves in-country roaming and provides federated localisation and global eSIM orchestration. This will enable operators to be competitive and deliver flexible, seamless and highly scalable global connectivity solutions, while critically retaining control of their existing customer relationships,” said Ian Marsden.
2. NB-IoT is on the decline as MNOs seek more scalable solutions
Initially positioned as a low-power, low-cost connectivity solution, NB-IoT is now losing momentum due to limited global adoption, increasing high infrastructure costs, and modem compatibility issues.
“Despite its technical advantages, NB-IoT has not achieved the critical mass needed to sustain the infrastructure required to keep it alive. With major operators like AT&T discontinuing support in 2025, we expect more MNOs will follow suit, favouring LTE and 5G as they are more versatile, economically viable and widely adopted,” added Marsden.
3. The rise of AIoT – the ultimate game changer for IoT connectivity
The convergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT, known as AIoT, will rewrite the IoT connectivity playbook across three critical areas: device-level processing, the application layer and across the networking layer.
“Enterprises and MNOs will gain new capabilities: predictive maintenance that prevents failures before they occur, dynamic network management that adapts to changing conditions, and localised decision-making that reduces latency and improves reliability,” said Marsden.
“The market is demanding intelligent, scalable and future-proofed solutions. Whether it’s MNOs adopting a federated connectivity model, enterprises moving away from NB-IoT, or the rise of AIoT, the message is clear — adaptability is key. Eseye is proud to be at the forefront of these changes, continuing to provide innovative connectivity solutions that empower MNOs and enterprises to deploy IoT confidently on a global scale,” Earle concluded.
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