The smart cities debate currently focuses on artificial intelligence, advanced analytics, and urban automation. However, behind every real-time decision lies a network of millions of IoT devices that must remain connected, secure, and operational for years.
Connectivity is becoming a strategic layer of urban infrastructure. As McKinsey points out, while the first generation of smart city IoT deployments primarily observed, the new generation is beginning to act. According to the consulting firm, early smart city initiatives incorporated sensors, data, and dashboards without substantially changing how cities operated. Today, the combination of sensors, data infrastructure, edge computing, and AI allows urban systems to operate continuously: monitoring real-time conditions, making decisions, and automatically adjusting operations.
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As cities move from collecting information to operating in real time, the connectivity of the IoT devices supporting this infrastructure becomes critical. The evolution of smart cities is not simply about adding more sensors and AI. It requires building infrastructure capable of sensing, processing, and acting in real time. For this to work, millions of devices must remain connected and transmit information continuously.
In this environment, the scale of the challenge is unprecedented. The GSMA forecasts that there will be 38.7 billion IoT connections worldwide by 2030. Many of these devices will be geographically distributed and deployed for extended periods, making physical and manual connectivity management impractical. Telemetry and real-time urban services therefore require IoT infrastructure whose connectivity can be managed with the same flexibility as the rest of the infrastructure.
As McKinsey notes, cities are beginning to behave like distributed software platforms. Transportation, energy, water, and waste management operate as subsystems that can function independently but must remain coordinated. This reinforces the need for connectivity that is also distributed, flexible, remotely manageable, and scalable.
McKinsey data indicates that unplanned disruptions, congestion, and reactive maintenance cost large cities between 2% and 4% of their annual GDP due to lost productivity, asset damage, and emergency response expenses. This highlights the value of monitoring and predictive maintenance in anticipating problems before they occur.
Autonomous operations depend on continuous situational awareness. Periodic inspections and manual reports are no longer sufficient. Urban systems need to respond within seconds or minutes. In this context, connectivity becomes a prerequisite for effective urban automation.
The more decentralized and autonomous urban infrastructure becomes, the more important it is to remotely manage the connectivity of the devices that support it.
Within this framework, eSIM provides an alternative for smart cities by changing the connectivity management model. In addition to eliminating the physical SIM card—and reducing mechanical failures caused by vibration, moisture, or temperature—it enables remote profile management, adaptation to changing conditions, and reduced reliance on physical intervention. This is especially relevant when managing thousands or millions of IoT devices deployed for years across diverse locations.
eSIM may not be at the core of a city’s intelligence, but it can become a key part of the infrastructure that keeps the IoT devices enabling that intelligence connected and remotely manageable. In this way, it supports a more flexible, scalable, and potentially more resilient connectivity model.
The GSMA’s SGP.32 standard is central to this evolution because it simplifies the remote management architecture for massive IoT deployments. It removes previous technical complexity and enables connectivity to be orchestrated through software. As urban infrastructure becomes increasingly software-defined, connectivity must also become flexible, programmable, and resilient.
A city’s intelligence does not begin and end with the algorithm making a decision. It starts much earlier, with the infrastructure that ensures data arrives on time and IoT devices remain operational.
Within this framework, eSIM is becoming part of the invisible infrastructure supporting the next generation of urban services. At Plusmo, we work with organizations seeking to develop more flexible, scalable connectivity strategies designed for the remote management of IoT devices. If your company is exploring how to incorporate eSIM into smart city projects, let’s talk.
