Ask HN: IoT SIM Cards | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: IoT SIM Cards

8 pointstiernano10 comments

So far in the last couple weeks Telnyx has increased the price of their IOT Data for their SIM cards by 8-10x their original price [2](used to be around 1c per MB, now its 10 depending on usage). Twilio sold their IOT network (Super Sim and the like) to Kore Wireless. If i am reading their site correctly, its gone from 10C per MB to now $1.08 per MB! Again, more than 10x increase... I have a small GPS tracker in my car and Im using a Twilio SIM (had an issue with Telnyx, a few months back and never tried swapping back). I use less than 10Mb a month and now my bill for Twilio will go from around $1 to more than $10, if the pricing here [1] is correct... Anyone know of a IOT SIM card that does not charge though the nose? Im based in Ireland, so most European or Global providers should work... Thanks.

[1] https://shop.korewireless.com/pages/iot-data-plans-and-pricing [2] https://support.telnyx.com/en/articles/3296669-programmable-wireless-pricing

Telnyx is not doing well financially, nor is Bandwidth.com, that is why both have upped their rent extraction tactics with shenanigans like offnet texting enablement fees when you use a different texting enablement provider, long support response times (Telnyx has acknowledged that it takes a week for them to respond to tickets currently).

Neither organization was prepared for a high interest rate environment, and this is reflected in how they are choosing to alter their business model now that they feel larger clients are locked in.

What you might look at is prepaid SIMs on Amazon and eBay for IoT use. Many bundle a years service and a data allotment or speed cap for a very low price. Speedtalk for example only charges $0.05/MB when roaming internationally. Other vendors are even cheaper in Ireland tho.

You can use one of that: https://www.thingsmobile.com/business/plans/pay-per-use-plan... https://blues.io/pricing/

My previous startup used wherever SIM for thousands of devices. Zero issues, convenient management. Not sure what their pricing is these days.

Couldn't you just get a prepaid sim? Is there a real difference?

There are LTE standards specifically designed for use with low bandwidth IoT applications in mind and they allow your devices to be extremely power efficient. There are both NB-IoT and LTE-M, but require extra SIM cards for access that are billed differently that’s your regular data plan.

The device I have does have that support, but also supports more normal, non-IOT standards, so this is not quite the case...

Minimum pre paid SIM in Ireland would be around 12 EURO a month, plus would include a phone number, text messages and 120GB of data... Seems over kill for something that only needs around 10mb... It also would be 12x the price i was paying before the price increases...

By prepaid I don't mean a subscription, I mean loading an amount then it uses that as balance, with it being charged per mb/sms/call.

Is that not a thing in Ireland?

yea, it is, but some are done in a way that the credit only stays active for 60 days or so...

:/ that's lame, they're valid for at least a year here.

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