Typically, once deployed, an M2M or industrial IoT device has little or no interaction with an end-user and often lacks a user interface. Therefore, a request to change network providers (change network subscription profile on a SIM) doesn’t need to come from a device. Instead, the connectivity can be managed using a remote profile ‘push’ model.
GSMA released the first iteration of the consumer eSIM specifications in 2016, developed for handling consumer device provisioning scenarios. The first target was network operators enabling connectivity on companion devices such as wearables, with smartphone support covered in a subsequent iteration. Its basis is an embedded UICC or eUICC element, with many security and communication concepts that are very similar to M2M. The biggest difference with the M2M solution is its use of a pull model triggered by an end-user to select their connectivity provider instead of the automated push model.