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
Pricing-wise, seems like Twilio has higher fixed but lower usage costs:
https://www.twilio.com/docs/iot/supersim
| Starting at $2 per active Super SIM per month.
| Data Usage - Starting at $0.10 / MB.
| $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.
Doesn't seem too bad to me.
It's just a different business altogether.
Twillio is charging >10x the rate per-byte. ($1e-8 / byte compared to the $1e-9 that ATT charges).
I don't know about you, but I use more than 1/10th of my data plan every month.
If you want to compare ATT to this offering, it would be fair to compare how much ATT for a single megabyte of pay-as-you-go international data. That price is $2.05 according to https://upgradedpoints.com/att-international-phone-plans/#:~....
They also won't give you a line for $2/month.
This platform has been around for at least 4 years iirc.
Hologram SIMs are price competitive here and allow devices to connect to the best network available without unfavorable network preference schemes.
Definitely difficult to parse.
Also, keep in mind that is data being sold to you for use only on their network. Roaming fees will be exorbitant if you need to go outside their network, which may be needed to reach rural areas, or when you have an asset tracker traveling between states or territories. Keep in mint that "normal priced data package" has very predictable usage — your phone is almost always online, meaning the backend infrastructure costs are low since it's not constantly going offline/online. The tower going out and verifying an IoT device should be on the network (especially if going through a roaming partner) is surprisingly expensive.
When we price custom for enterprise (i.e. specific countries, carriers, roll-out plan), the pricing becomes a lot more flexible. Should be seeing updates to that messaging soon.
For the car I have a ciggy socket.
Another use may be something like a device that warns if a locked, remote, storage area is accessed. In fact, almost any alarm system that lacks a cellular backup could add one pretty cheaply with this.