During my immersion in Portugal, I visited one of the largest IoT operations in the world. What I saw confirmed my perspective on what it means to build a scalable, sustainable Internet of Things business.
I won’t name the company — I’m here to share the model.
Pillar 1: Connectivity as the Foundation, Not the Product
The benchmark operation I visited has 165+ million connected devices and adds 2+ million new connections per month.
One global SIM, one global platform. Connectivity must be:
- Multi-network and agnostic — 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, LPWA (CAT-M, NB-IoT). There is no silver bullet. The use case defines the technology.
- Global — over 570 networks live across 182 countries. The device is born connected and stays connected, wherever it goes.
- Resilient through eSIM — dynamic provisioning and carrier profile switching. A single chip that adapts to the best available signal.
Pure connectivity has already become a commodity. The differentiator is how you manage it at scale.
Pillar 2: Ecosystem, Not Product
Here is the most important insight I took from this visit:
“There are no IoT Products. There are IoT PROJECTS.”
The benchmark operation doesn’t sell chips or sensors. It orchestrates an ecosystem with:
- A centralized platform with visualization tools and a data lake — the customer sees their data without having to build infrastructure for it.
- A solutions marketplace — devices, sensors, chips, vertical applications, monitoring. The specialist partner brings the vertical solution; the platform integrates it.
- 7 vertical specialty centers — buildings, logistics, healthcare, industrial manufacturing, automotive, insurance, agriculture. Each center with deep expertise in its segment.
- Private Networks (MPN) — for use cases demanding ultra-low latency and high speed: industrial augmented reality, video analytics, digital twins.
A valuable insight: N2/N3 support ALWAYS belongs to the partner. Whoever is closest to the customer is the one building the hardware or the application. The platform doesn’t compete with its partners — it enables them.
The partner is required to co-sign the project as well. This mitigates bankruptcy and vendor-replacement risk. It’s partner management, not just customer contract management.
Pillar 3: Digital Transformation, Not a Product
The benchmark operation works with a consulting approach. When necessary, it brings in global consultancies (such as KPMG, EY) to diagnose the customer’s problem before proposing a solution.
The path is:
- Diagnose — understand the customer’s real problem
- Design — architect the solution with specialized partners
- Connect — ensure resilient connectivity
- Manage — centralized platform with total visibility
- Scale — field service procedures for every city that needs one
From Tel.co to Tech.co
The transition from telecom operator to technology company is the most important strategic move in the market today.
Anyone still selling chips and data plans as their main product is already behind — and losing market share. The future is Everything as a Service — data processing, cloud storage, AI integration, all delivered as a complete service.
What Does This Mean for Brazil?
The Brazilian IoT market has everything it takes to be one of the largest in the world. We have scale; we have demand in agribusiness, smart cities, industry 4.0, and logistics. What’s missing isn’t technology — it’s an integrating platform that connects the right partners to the right problems.
That’s the mission.