Autonomous Vehicle IoT Data SIM Cards
Multi-network data SIMs for autonomous shuttles, delivery robots, field machines and remotely supervised plant — connectivity for the telemetry, supervision and updates, never for the driving.
The vehicle must be safe with no signal at all
Any autonomous system worth deploying makes its safety decisions on board, with no network in the loop. What the link carries is everything around that: where the vehicle is, what it saw, whether a supervisor needs to look, and the next software release. Those still have to arrive, along routes that cross a dozen cells an hour.
Up to four networks, one SIM
In the UK, France and Spain a Wave SIM reaches four operators. In Germany, Italy and Ireland, three. A moving platform takes whichever is strongest at each point on the route rather than carrying one operator's gaps everywhere.
Profile changes without recalling the fleet
On hardware that supports remote provisioning we load or switch the network profile for you from our side. It depends on the device, so ask us whether yours qualifies.
Built for pilots as much as fleets
30-day and 12-month plans bought outright, with no minimum fleet size — three vehicles on a trial is a normal order. Pooled data across a fleet has no cap.
What a single network costs you
Not a crash. Something slower and more expensive.
A supervisor who can't see
A vehicle that stops and asks for help needs a human to look at a camera feed. If the one network on that stretch of route is congested, the vehicle sits safely and uselessly at the kerb while the queue behind it grows.
Routes cross operators' gaps
A delivery loop or shuttle line is a fixed tour of every dead spot one operator has. Those gaps become fleet-management blind spots at the same place every trip, which is precisely the pattern a multi-network SIM breaks.
Trials that cross borders
Pilots move between test sites and countries. Sourcing a SIM per country turns a fleet of ten into a procurement exercise. One plan type across the region is the admin saving nobody budgets for.
What you'll be connecting
Platforms that drive themselves and still need to phone home.
What a vehicle actually uses
Telemetry is small. Supervision video is not. Raw sensor logs do not belong on cellular at all.
Telemetry and fleet management
Roughly 0.5–2 GB a month per vehicle for position, state, health and incident flags at high frequency.
Remote supervision
Roughly 10–50 GB a month if a supervisor views camera feeds on demand; far more if streamed constantly. Refills reach 100 GB and pooled data has no cap.
Sensor log offload
Hundreds of GB per vehicle per day. This goes over WiFi at the depot, not cellular, and any supplier who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
A vehicle running telemetry and occasional supervision starts on the 25 GB / 12 month plan with refills behind it. A fleet doing regular supervision belongs on pooled data. The expensive mistake in this sector is trying to push logs over the air — design the depot WiFi first and the cellular bill becomes small.
These are indicative figures, not measurements of your platform. Give us a month of traffic from one vehicle and we will size the fleet against it before you buy anything.
Plans for pilots and fleets
Prices shown in your own currency. Most vehicle gateways take a standard SIM; the eSIM suits a sealed unit buried in the chassis. For a fleet doing regular supervision, pooled data is the right starting point.
Europe 25 GB / 12 Months
Most boughtStandard SIM
Europe 12 GB / 12 Months
Standard SIM
Europe 6 GB / 12 Months
Standard SIM
Running a fleet, or a trial that crosses borders? Talk to us about pooled data.
Common questions
Can we drive the vehicle remotely over this?
You should not design for that, and we will not tell you otherwise. Cellular latency and jitter vary by the second; nothing safety-critical should depend on it. What works well is assistive supervision — a human looking at a feed and issuing a high-level instruction to a vehicle that has already stopped safely on its own. Multi-network makes that feed more available; it does not make it a control link.
Does the vehicle need a fixed IP or private network?
Usually not. Most platforms open an outbound connection to their fleet backend, so nothing needs to reach the vehicle from outside and a standard APN is fine. If your architecture does require a fixed address or a private APN, tell us before ordering — it is a specific requirement and we would rather confirm it than let you assume it.
How should we handle the sensor data the vehicle records?
Over WiFi at the depot, overnight. A single vehicle can record hundreds of gigabytes of camera and lidar data a day, and no cellular plan at any price is the right way to move that. Use the SIM for what has to travel in real time — position, state, incidents, the occasional supervision feed — and the bill stays small.
Does the APN change when the SIM switches network?
No. The APN is set once in the gateway and stays put through reselection, so one build goes into every vehicle whichever operator a given stretch of route attaches to.
What if a vehicle uses more than its plan?
Nothing auto-bills at a surprise rate. Refills on a prepaid plan go up to 100 GB, so a heavy supervision month is a top-up rather than a migration, and the portal can notify you before a plan runs out rather than after. Across a fleet, pooled data has no cap and is quoted.
Tell us about the platform
How many vehicles, what they report, how often a supervisor looks in, and where the trial runs. We'll size it and send a quote, usually the same day.