In-car-connectivity is transforming how users interact with their vehicles—making driving smarter, safer, and more seamless across geographies. From real-time traffic updates and remote vehicle control to always-on infotainment and over-the-air software upgrades, connected cars offer a personalised, efficient, and secure experience wherever you go. Whether navigating city roads or crossing borders, today’s vehicles are becoming intelligent companions on the move. But as adoption rises, so do the challenges.
Speaking to Mobility Outlook, Marco Bijvelds, Vice President & Global Head – Tata Communications MOVE, said, integrating eSIM technology across both legacy and next-gen vehicle platforms is a major hurdle for OEMs. To avoid disrupting critical vehicle operations, a non-intrusive, standards-based approach is essential. This is where the eSIM hub plays a central role—acting as a unified layer that supports past, current, and future systems, ensuring interoperability across platforms.
A key concern is the transition from existing standards like SGP.22 to the newer SGP.32 IoT eSIM standard. Adoption is slow due to scalability and compatibility issues. To solve this, a flexible solution built on SGP.22 is provided, designed to seamlessly migrate to SGP.32 in future, relieving OEMs from backward and forward compatibility worries.
From a global deployment standpoint, technical and commercial complexities multiply due to varying network regulations, security mandates, and data privacy laws across regions. The eSIM hub addresses this by offering compliant, region-specific profiles through partnerships with multiple MNOs. In some cases, even dedicated infrastructure is deployed to meet local legal requirements.
Importantly, OEMs can either use bundled connectivity or bring their own vendors. The platform integrates both, offering a unified management experience, lower operational costs, and a foundation for building new data-driven capabilities across the fleet.
Smart Connectivity, Local Compliance
Ensuring regulatory compliance across regions—while upholding data privacy, security, and lawful interception—is one of the toughest challenges in connected mobility. The solution lies in intelligent eSIM profile provisioning tailored to each geography.
Marco Bijvelds
Whether it’s an OEM manufacturing cars in India or a vehicle crossing into a new country, the system detects the network environment and automatically pushes a locally compliant eSIM profile. This ensures the vehicle adheres to regional telecom and data laws without manual intervention.
For markets with strict requirements like India, the platform supports local profiles or private network options, depending on feasibility. This built-in intelligence makes global deployment scalable, secure, and regulation-ready—exactly what eSIM technology was designed to deliver. The connectivity solution is pre-tested in each target region using virtual SIM tools to ensure reliable performance and quality of service for automotive deployments, he said.
According to him the solution from Tata Communications uses AI to analyse real-time network data and dynamically switch between satellite and cellular networks to maintain consistent quality of service (QoS). This ensures seamless connectivity, including for over-the-air updates and mission-critical applications like ambulances, where routing may depend on network reliability rather than speed.
Scaling Smart
To support millions of connected vehicles globally, the eSIM management platform is designed to be cloud-native, elastic, and scalable—meeting the diverse needs of OEMs, including cost efficiency in markets like India and seamless custom API integration.
The strategy hinges on standardised, non-intrusive APIs and an orchestration-first approach to simplify integration. The platform architecture supports both cloud and on-premise deployments, offering flexibility based on customer preferences. With key components like the RSP, CMP, and packet gateways hosted in the cloud, the system is built for rapid expansion and minimal infrastructure constraints.
While bottlenecks may still arise from network congestion or in-vehicle processing limitations, the platform itself is future-ready. Built in-house and powered by the company’s proprietary ‘vayu’ cloud solution—part of its broader digital fabric—it continues to scale effortlessly across global markets. “We're flexible in terms of deployments. And in that sense, the solutions are elastic, as you would expect,” explained Bijvelds.
Driving Value Beyond Connectivity
Traditional telecom capabilities fall short in meeting the evolving demands of connected vehicles. To bridge this gap, advanced services such as split billing, traffic analytics, and intelligent data routing are now critical. By inspecting data packets and identifying specific services—like Spotify, Netflix, or digital radio—connectivity providers can enable OEMs to charge separately for each, adding a new revenue layer, he said.
The platform supports firmware and connectivity-related OTA updates, while core vehicle software updates typically remain under OEM control. A key differentiator lies in the platform’s ability to combine network data with AI-driven business logic, enabling proactive decisions based on vehicle behaviour and usage patterns.
“Our participation in many software-defined vehicle (SDV) programmes, software development vehicle programmes, provides a lot of insight as to where the market is going,” he said. While the monetisation model for in-car digital services is still evolving, infotainment remains the clearest path for now. As automakers continue to explore service-based business models, data intelligence and agile connectivity platforms are proving central to unlocking long-term value.
Enabling Proactive Vehicle Management
While eSIMs primarily ensure flexible, high-quality, and cost-efficient global connectivity, their value amplifies when paired with advanced OTA capabilities. Using real-time network insights, the system helps OEMs identify the best time and location to push software updates, maximising the success rate and minimising user disruption.
Remote diagnostics, though managed by the OEMs, also rely on these secure connectivity channels. Data from the vehicle is transmitted seamlessly, enabling faster issue detection and resolution. For end users, this translates to fewer service visits, timely updates, and a more reliable driving experience, he said.
The Road Ahead: Personalised, Software-Defined Mobility
As automotive and digital technologies converge, the car is steadily evolving into a personalised, software-defined device—much like a smartphone. In the near future, vehicles will receive feature updates instantly, tailored to regions, user preferences, or specific campaigns, enabling a dynamic ownership experience.
This shift will decentralise control, allowing automakers to push functionalities individually to each vehicle. “As a result, no two cars will be alike—each will reflect its user's needs and preferences. SDVs will be the key enabler of this transformation, turning cars into continuously evolving, intelligent mobility platforms,” Bijvelds signed off.
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