IoT Advisory Board 

Meeting

16 May 2023
Company and Presenter

Who we are

 Serving M2M and IoT since mid-1990’s

• Connected vehicles, fleets, monitoring, etc.

• Recently acquired IoT Accelerator and 

Connected Vehicle Cloud from Ericsson

 Global Cellular IoT Services

• Thousands of enterprise customers

• Devices in >200 countries / territories

 In Top 5 in the World (Cellular IoT units)

• Many tens of millions of devices

 “Super” MVNO ... Intelligent IoT Core

• SIMs, connectivity, analytics, cloud, security

 Founder of Aeris ... 27+ years

• Headed Eng and Ops ... 15 years

• Now: CTO Emeritus & Chief Evangelist

 Chairman of IFAST

• International ANSI-41 number mgmt

 Boards

• IMC Council (Chairman Emeritus)

• CDMA Development Group (CDG)

• Mobility Development Group (MDG)

 Multiple Patents in IoT

• Pioneered capabilities used widely

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Presentation

Removing barriers to growth

 Security and Scale

• My phrase: “Security at Scale”

 Technology 

• Cellular sunsets over time

 Resources

• Number assignments in USA

 Regulations

• National / International consistency

 Regardless ... IoT deployments growing rapidly!

• “Billions” becoming real globally

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Security Alert

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Threats in the IoT World are growing rapidly

 IoT Cybersecurity Attacks Growing

• 240% increase in attacks against IoT devices in first 

half of 2021 (Kaspersky)

 IoT Devices are Vulnerable

• Over 90% of IoT traffic is unencrypted (Z-Scaler, Palo Alto)

• Average time for device probe by bad actors is 5 min

(Kaspersky)

• 287 days to mitigate breach! (IBM)

• 53% of IoT projects abandoned due to risk (Z-Scaler)

 IoT Data Breaches are Impactful

• Average cost of breach in 2021: $4.24 million (IBM)
Technology Evolution

 IoT Devices Are Long-Lived

• Useful life of many years ... unlike consumer handsets

 Most IoT apps do not need broadband

• But, have to migrate to use available technology

 Examples of US Sunsets and Impact

• AMPS: Aeris customers removed 1.7M units (2008)

• GPRS: Alarm industry ... 4-5M units (2016) 

• 3G: General monitoring ... 10-12M units (2022)

• CDMA: Automotive/fleet ... 20-40M units (2022) 

 Near-Future 

• 4G LTE: Projected sunset ... 2027 to 2030

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Cellular technology changes ”rapidly”
Numbering Resources – USA

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Issue for some Cellular IoT applications

 Certain IoT apps require Dialable Numbers 

• IFAST ranges cannot receive “calls” 

 Outdated Assignment/Allocation Policies 

• Created in an era of NPA wireline assignments 

• Constraints for nationwide wireless units 

• IoT units are deployed and operate everywhere 

− Devices in motion ... service area is entire country 

• Stopgap 5YY numbers not sufficient

 IoT Access to Resource is Limited 

• Licensing (e.g., from CLEC) is cost prohibitive 

• Requires carriers to support entities like Aeris
Regulations Evolving

Slower than needed

 Security Regulations 

• Mostly geared to protect individual privacy

 US States Taking Lead (e.g., CA SB 327)

• Laws still general and abstract

• Difficult to regulate ... IoT serves many markets

• Certification, app-specificity, compliance

 Federal Regulations / Oversight

• Consistent rules easier to meet nationally

 International Coordination

• Global IoT app deployments are very common 
THANK YOU!

© 2023 Aeris Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

An overview of IoT for business uses 

and applications

https://www.aeris.com/iotguide

Syed Zaeem Hosain “Z”