The number of active NB-IoT and LTE-M connections worldwide surpassed one billion at the end of 2025, according to GSMA data, marking a threshold that IoT connectivity providers say shifts the industry's focus from deployment to long-term device management.
Ahead of World IoT Day on 9 April, Wireless Logic's group managing director for Europe and the UK, Cyril Deschanel, argued that connecting devices is now the simpler part of the equation. The harder challenge is keeping them operational, secure and compliant across lifespans that can stretch to fifteen years.
Low-power cellular technologies have moved firmly into the mainstream of global infrastructure. We're now seeing large-scale deployments across utilities, smart metering, logistics, agriculture and smart cities, where devices are expected to operate reliably for ten or fifteen years with minimal human intervention.
Data sovereignty is becoming a particularly thorny issue for multinational deployments. Regulations around permanent roaming, local data processing, and cross-border transfer vary by jurisdiction and are still evolving. Standards such as SGP.32, which allows remote provisioning and switching of connectivity profiles, help enterprises localise devices onto in-country operator networks, but Deschanel noted that full data sovereignty also depends on broader architectural decisions including local traffic breakout and in-country data processing.
As the industry moves toward the next billion connected devices, the ability to manage connectivity intelligently across the full lifecycle of an IoT deployment will become just as important as the networks themselves.
