What is our primary use case?
I have been using 1NCE on and off over the past five years for IoT applications.
My main use case for 1NCE is that it provides IoT SIM cards. I work on IoT use cases where I bring sensors into the field. Those sensors might have power if you are lucky, but maybe do not even have power and you want to get some sensor values back from those sensors every once in a while. I use the mobile network for doing that.
A specific example of a project where I used 1NCE SIM cards for my sensors is when I worked in the chemical industry. They have their own area for traffic management and there was specific traffic that needed to be tracked. I brought in sensors to track that traffic. This was also an area where not a lot of traffic was present. So that meant we could run off batteries and scan the vehicles from there and have an understanding of who is where at what time for SHE, for safe, healthy, and environment purposes. IoT devices in essence, I was measuring traffic.
What is most valuable?
I think the cool part about 1NCE is that they provide SIM cards for ten years, making them relevant for ten years. It is fairly cheap to get a SIM card from them and if you have a need for particular networks, they support the breadth of networks. With IoT sensors, for example, the 2G and 3G are probably more used. NarrowBand-IoT is also available there. When you want to bring a sensor in the field, it is going to have a certain lifetime and you want to add a SIM card to that, and it is very easy to do that with 1NCE.
The best features 1NCE offers in my experience are that you get the SIM cards, you have a platform in which you can manage your SIM cards and you have a backend where you can also communicate. What I think is really powerful about 1NCE is that you can just order it online. It is very simple to do, you have it really quickly and it just works out of the box. If you would compare that to other mobile phone or mobile network providers, then this would be a lot of work with contracts and other administrative tasks. Here you do not have that. Another nice feature is that their platform allows for geofencing or geolocation, so you can identify where what towers are being used and where your sensor approximately is. This also helps with tracking. They have the capability to manage network access, whether devices can go directly to the internet or have a different approach of accessing those devices. This covers the breadth of needs for bringing IoT and mobile network together.
1NCE has impacted my organization positively because I am a freelancer and I deliver this to customers. Customers very often struggle with getting started with IoT. They have to think about contracts for mobile phone providers or mobile network providers. Because 1NCE has a very simple business model, it is very easy to understand, very easy to budget, and that lowers the threshold for companies that want to start with this.
What needs improvement?
I do not have any complaints about 1NCE at the moment. I do not have much to add about needed improvements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working in my current field for about ten plus years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding the stability of 1NCE, I appreciate that there is a little bit of maintenance, but they always call it out. I have never had unexpected downtime. Sometimes there was expected downtime, and I think that is good enough.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I find the scalability of 1NCE extremely easy; that is one of the core features.
The scalability of 1NCE means, first of all, can the platform handle the traffic? The answer is that there is no issue in that. But I think scaling also means onboarding new devices, and that is very simple to do. Getting the SIM cards is also a matter of within one or two days, you have a new SIM card. The scalability is also fast in that sense. It is not just easy, but it is also fast. And I think that makes it extremely good.
How are customer service and support?
I have reached out to customer support very rarely, and it was always excellent. I rate the customer support a ten. They are extremely knowledgeable and effective. I also was not moved along; they could help me directly. That was great.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I had some experience with Vodafone and KPN, and that did not work very well.
How was the initial setup?
The requisitioning process with 1NCE is extremely simple. It is very easy to get on board and start doing this. I think it means that your IT organization has a problem less to deal with. How big that problem is to begin with depends, of course, on your usage. I cannot provide concrete numbers, but I think it is the easiest way to bring IoT online through the mobile network.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is cheap, simple, and easy.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated Vodafone and KPN before choosing 1NCE.
What other advice do I have?
The core feature is not time saved in that sense. The core feature is that people actually start doing it, where they otherwise would not because it is just too laborious.
I rate 1NCE a ten out of ten.
I give it a ten because it is a seemingly simple problem, but as you start looking closer to it, it is actually a difficult problem that they are fixing. What I really appreciate about 1NCE, and I think they are the only player that really does it like this, is that they provide the SIM card and it just works. There is very little clutter in getting this operationalized. If you are with a bunch of IoT engineers working on a project and you actually need a SIM card, you can get that done in a matter of hours. The enablement is what I think is unique to 1NCE and what I really appreciate.
Regarding 1NCE's AI capabilities, I think it has a very good suite of tools. They also provide APN and OpenVPN solutions to get site-to-site connectivity, for example. You can make your own little infrastructure, your own little network for your own data, or you can just go through the internet, and that makes it so you can have many security postures fitting the need of your organization. They have a little bit of AI, and it works effectively. It works on the data you have inside of your platform, so the usage of your sensors and your IoT devices.
1NCE is a standalone platform hosted by Deutsche Telekom, and it is not hosted anywhere else. You can use OpenVPN, for example, to make site-to-site VPNs to connect it to any cloud provider that you like. Currently, it just goes over the internet and reaches different cloud providers depending on my customers.
My advice to anyone looking into using 1NCE is to just use it. It seems daunting at first; you just put in your credit card and then it works, and with anyone else, it is such a big problem. But it really is that simple. My overall rating for 1NCE is ten out of ten.