Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta • Hacker News Board

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#91

Post by matjaxon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

sb8244 wrote: post #15

cordite wrote: post #6

Viewing this site took 4.5MB with trackers. That's half a dollar of data. Now I understand that IOT stuff would likely have smaller payloads. But that really looks like a great way to rack up costs with a run away program submitting or retrieving data in a bad loop.

I wonder if this will be like Programmable Wireless where you can get cheaper data rates for different levels of commit. Their pricing page says "starts at" and doesn't really go into how they handle bulk discount. If this really is the pricing, then it's definitely IOT focused instead of Programmable Wireless's more general focus.

Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. Glad you're familiar with Programmable Wireless, our other cellular connectivity offering!

The “starts at” that we have on our pricing page is for the cheapest priced networks we have in each country. For example, in the UK we have a number of networks that are $0.10 per MB but if you want to use EE it’s $0.20 per MB. With our Network Access Profiles, you can pick exactly which networks you want your Super SIMs to be able to connect to. If EE is the only network that services your area or works best with your hardware and is worth premium to use, you can enable it for your Super SIMs.

For now, we just have a pay-as-you-go pricing plan for Super SIM whereas Programmable Wireless has a number of different quota plans that let you commit to a minimum monthly spend per SIM in exchange for discounts as a way for you to self service into lower data costs for hungrier devices. Our pay-as-you-go prices are meant to just get you started. We don’t expect any of our developers to scale up their IoT business at these list prices. Once you’re up and running, you can connect with one of our IoT sales specialists to discuss volume discounts. Promise they don’t bite!

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#92

Post by matjaxon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

VectorLock wrote: post #90

Do these services just support 1 or 2 sims? I can think of a few hacky projects to use these for. I think T-Mobile was going to start offering NB-IOT starting at $5 but I don't know how many minimum units or other stipulations they have.

Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM.

Our other cellular connectivity solution, Programmable Wireless, which we developed in partnership with T-Mobile, has a NB-IoT SIM that you can purchase from us if you’re interested in checking out T-Mobile’s narrowband network. If you don’t have any hardware, you can purchase a Developer Kit for the T-Mobile USA NB-IoT network from our Console which comes with some hardware and a NB-IoT SIM.

https://www.twilio.com/wireless/narrowband

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#93

Post by ilaksh » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

What type of IoT device would I install this SIM in? Are there SBCs that come with a place to plug in a SIM and everything else needed to run it? I thought all of those types of things were made for phones.

Edit: After some googling, found out about cellular IoT and GSM/GPRS modules for things like Arduino. Will that work with these Super SIMs?

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#94

Post by stjo » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

Confiks wrote: post #89

adriand wrote: post #31

I've always thought it would be fun to make experimental hardware devices with this type of technology. An example: Build a solar-powered device that you stick up in a tree in a forested patch near an urban center where kids go and have bush parties/bonfires/etc. The device would include a text-to-speech synthesizer. It's dormant most of the time, but designed to activate when people are around it at night. As the "a…

I can imagine such a device would be quite disconcerting to Winston and Julia as well, hidden away in a natural clearing; around a tiny grassy knoll surrounded by tall saplings that shut it in completely.

Orwell underestimated our ability to make surveillance devices tiny and sprinkle them everywhere

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#95

Post by simcop2387 » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #88

dominotw wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what are some of cool products built with this tech.

My mailbox is in a block of other mailboxes that is fairly far from my home (say, 500m) and out of wifi range without an especially large antenna. I was thinking of making a small battery-powered widget to tell me when the mail arrived and adding it to my Home Assistant ( https://www.home-assistant.io/ ) installation. Another use may be something like a device that warns if a locked, remote, storage area is accessed.…

LoRa WAN and such tech can be very useful for this.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#96

Post by matjaxon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

MichaelApproved wrote: post #72

@matjaxon - A lot of your comments here are getting deleted. If you're not deleting them yourself, I suspect it's because you're making a lot of comments with a new account and getting caught in the spam filter. Someone from HN should undelete your comments.

Thanks appreciate the heads up! I reached out to HN and they verified my account. Always ever been a lurker and made an account today. You were spot on about why they were getting caught in the filter.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#97

Post by alasdair_ » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:16 PM UTC

simcop2387 wrote: post #95

alasdair_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mailbox is in a block of other mailboxes that is fairly far from my home (say, 500m) and out of wifi range without an especially large antenna. I was thinking of making a small battery-powered widget to tell me when the mail arrived and adding it to my Home Assistant ( https://www.home-assistant.io/ ) installation. Another use may be something like a device that warns if a locked, remote, storage area is accessed.…

LoRa WAN and such tech can be very useful for this.

Thanks! I hadn't seen this!

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#98

Post by matjaxon » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

pheeney wrote: post #79

matjaxon wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there, Matt Jackson from Twilio here. I’m the Product Manager for Super SIM. This is definitely not a dumb question. In fact, all of us on the Super SIM team have really enjoyed reading this thread and learning what you have questions about! Super SIMs can be put into any device that has a SIM card slot, including almost any cell phone, but they are not designed to be a replacement for your cell phone’s SIM card.…

> it doesn't support traditional circuit network components used for traditional voice calling or SMS so these won't work like you expect. Does this mean that the number associated with the Super SIM would be classified as VOIP and rejected by certain systems that require a "real" number. For example using the new SIM in any phone number verification system that rejects google voice and other providers.

Good question. Super SIMs actually don’t have a phone number that is publicly addressable. You could use a Twilio phone number and our voice SDK to wire up VoIP calling to and from a device; however, Twilio phone numbers will be treated as VoIP numbers and can often not be used for verification systems.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#99

Post by xwdv » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

Looks great, we're using a similar product for building a massive guerrilla network of solar powered IOT devices in strategic locations collecting some alternative data for hedge funds.

Re: Twilio Super Sim – Public Beta

#100

Post by AdamJacobMuller » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

matjaxon wrote: post #87

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way to contain or firewall the SIMs such that they only have access to specific networks? That seems like the holy grail of avoiding people buying IoT devices for their SIM (e.g. what happened with early kindles and many other devices).

Great question! Super SIM has a feature called Network Access Profiles that lets you pick exactly which cellular networks you want your devices to be able to connect to. A lot of other cellular solutions, Twilio’s other cellular connectivity solution included, give you really rudimentary control such as do you want access to the United States (yes/no) and do you want the rest of the world (yes/no). Network Access Pro…

What I mean more is, once those devices are connected to "the network" is there a way to limit the usage of those SIMs so they could only connect to my systems, and not connect to "the internet" at large.