Category: SIM Management Platform

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2 Updates to the OSCAR IoT SIM Management Portal

New API Command Available for Updating User Name and Device Fields

We added a new API command for both Pooled and PAYG accounts This command will allow you to update the User Name and Device fields for your IoT SIM Cards in the OSCAR portal. This is especially useful when you are using your own portal to activate IoT SIMs & include the User Name (nickname). The User Name & Device Type are now populated to our OSCAR portal automatically through API. Before now, these fields could only  be updated on the Portal in separate tabs. Automating this process is a great time-saver!

New Feature in the OSCAR Portal Allows for Updating/Making Changes to up to 200 SIMs at a Time

Before this update, the maximum number of SIMs that can be displayed on the SIM card page was 100. You could select up to all 100 and perform a bulk operation on these SIMs.  Also, these SIMs had to be in certain logical order (sorted by SIM #, ICCID, Status, etc.). If you wanted to work on SIM cards that were not consecutive in this logical order, or only some of those SIMs but not all, you needed to select (or deselect) only those which you want to work on. Last month, we added functionality to upload a CSV file into the portal with the SIM card numbers on which you want to work. You will see this file upload option at the top of the SIM card page. This upload tool allows you to load a CSV file with up to 200 SIM cards at a time. Now you can work on more SIMs at once, and choose the SIMs you on which you want to work based on the file you uploaded (maybe it was a report you ran, etc.).

If you have any questions on these new functions or any other questions on the OSCAR IoT SIM card management portal, please reach out to our IoT experts at Sales@OneSimCard.com.

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Why IP Filtering Is Important for Security

When you put together an IoT solution the intention is always to route data traffic to where you want, but this isn’t always ensured. Devices and IoT SIM cards aren’t inherently secured and we have written numerous articles on ways to lock your IoT solution down. Today we want to discuss the best way to ensure that data can only go where you expect using IP Filtering on your IoT SIM card.

IP Filtering (or IP Whitelisting) is a method whereby you identify only those IP addresses where data can travel. This is critical because IoT SIM cards and devices tend to be open to send data anywhere and without filtering at the IoT SIM card level, devices can be hacked to send data to other IP addresses other than where you want the traffic to go. 

OneSimCard has the ability to filter the IP addresses where our IoT SIM cards are able to send data. This is accomplished by whitelisting the IP addresses where you want data traffic to end up. Our clients send us these trusted IP addresses and we set these rules up in our Network server to only allow he IoT SIM cards to send traffic to these addresses. If the IoT device attempts to send traffic to any other address, it will fail because we have blocked that IP address by rule.

Use cases for IP Filtering are numerous. Here are just a few examples:

  • IoT SIMs in Hotspots for employees to limit the IP addresses where the employee can navigate using the company asset (not exactly IoT, but the SIM doesn’t know that!);
  • SIMs in ATM’s and credit card processing where banking information is transmitted and must be secure and data traffic must be limited;
  • Alarms and security products like cameras because, especially with cameras, only you want to have this data, and leakage to other IP addresses can be expensive;
  • Any IoT solution which counts on very small data quantities because data leakage can lead to overage and higher costs.

If you would like to learn more about our IP Filtering solution for IoT SIM cards and if this is something that makes sense for your organization, please reach out to sales@onesimcard.com and one of our IOT experts will be glad to talk this through with you.

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OneSimCard OSCAR Prepaid Account Overview Video Now Available

OneSimCard IoT Connectivity pricing plans fall into 2 general categories: Pay-as-you-go (Prepaid) & Pooled with offer rates as low as $0.01/MB in both categories.

Prepaid accounts are perfect for those who are uncertain of their data consumption needs, or where individual IoT devices consume a vastly different amount of data per month.

With prepaid accounts, each SIM is funded from an existing balance on the account. The SIM billing can be set-up in 2 ways: Pay-As-You-Go per MB or with a discount plan starting at 5MB per SIM. Each SIM can have a different plan giving you a tremendous amount of flexibility in your deployment.

In this video:

Dashboard 00:00​
SIM Cards Settings 1:33
SIM Card Alarms 5:10​
SIM Card Activation Templates 5:39​
Billing 6:07​
Reports 7:14 ​
VPN 7:40
Admins 8:10​
Profile 8:32
Rates 8:41
Help / Support 8:52

Learn more about Global IoT SIM Card connectivity solutions including Pooled and Pay-As-You-Go account, APN, VPN, Static IP’s and IMEI Lock at iot.onesimcard.com

Learn more about OneSimCard OSCAR IoT SIM Platform here.

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OneSimCard OSCAR Pooled Account Overview Video Now Available

OneSimCard IoT Connectivity pricing plans fall into 2 general categories: Pay-as-you-go (Prepaid) & Pooled with offer rates as low as $0.01/MB in both categories.

IoT connectivity clients choose Pooled accounts when they have a general idea about their data usage and their IoT devices require a similar amount of cellular data traffic. Data in this category of plans pools across all active devices on the account.

Each active SIM contributes an equal amount of data into the pool. Plan sizes can range from 50KB to 50TB per SIM– simply tell us what you need, and we will design a custom plan for your particular project.

In this video:

Dashboard 00:00
SIM Cards Settings 1:03
SIM Card Alarms 3:23
SIM Card Activation Templates 3:38
Billing 4:04
Reports 4:38
VPN 5:05
Admins 5:35
Profile 6:04
Rates 6:10
Help / Support 6:37

Learn more about Global IoT SIM Card connectivity solutions including Pooled and Pay-As-You-Go account, APN, VPN, Static IP’s and IMEI Lock at iot.onesimcard.com

Learn more about OneSimCard OSCAR IoT SIM Platform here.

 

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Set a Future Date for Blocking & Deactivating (Removing) an IoT SIM Card

Schedule SIM Card Deactivation or Removal

Often times, you might have a device where there is a date in the future when you want the SIM to be Blocked or Deactivated/Removed from the account, and managing these dates can be a huge challenge. To address this need, we have added functionality in the OSCAR Platform to set a date for these functions.

Possible use cases include:

    • You have an end customer with one of your devices who pays on a “subscription” basis, e.g. monthly, quarterly, annually, etc. and you want the device to only work while their account is in good standing;
    • You have a device that is meant for a project for a set time period and you want to shut it off automatically at the end of the project timeframe;

You can find this feature in the SIM Settings tab of OSCAR (SIM CARDS>Settings of the SIM), or in the batch operation menu at the bottom of the SIM card page. This function is available in both PAYG and Pooled account types. We are also expecting to add this function to our API list as well. Look for this in the coming months.

Lean more about the OSCAR IoT SIM Card Management platform here.

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Using Templates to Activate or Update Existing SIM Card Settings

IoT SIM Settings Template
Use Default or Create Your Own IoT SIM Settings Templates

We were asked by a number of customers to allow the use of pre-configured templates when activating SIM cards because some of the settings are the same based on a particular use case. The use case may differ across all of your SIM cards, though, and it would be useful to select a previously created template to activate a new SIM card which will update all of the appropriate settings on the SIM including

For PAYG Accounts:

  • Enable Auto-recharge with pre-defined amounts, limits, and SIM minimum balance
  • Set Device Model Type
  • Set User Name (many clients use this for their customer name, or device location, or IMEI of the device, etc.…think of this as a “nickname” for the SIM card)
  • Set an initial balance on the SIM Card
  • Assign a Discount Data Plan on the SIM card
  • Assign Static IP address (of enabled on your account
  • Set notification if the balance of the SIM card goes below a certain amount

For Pooled Accounts:

  • Set Device Model Type
  • Set a monthly Data Limit
  • Set End User Name
  • Assign Static IP address

You can save as many templates as you need so ensure you can activate a SIM with all of the appropriate settings for that SIM with a single click. You can also choose as many of the available fields as you wish; use them all or use only one…it’s completely in your hands!

What’s more, you can use this feature to update existing SIMs on your account. Once you have at least one template saved on your account, simply

  1. Select the SIM cards you want to update;
  2. Choose the “Apply SIM Activation Template” option from the batch operation menu at the bottom of the SIM Card page;
  3. Choose the template you want to use!
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New API Command Available for Pooled Accounts

As of October 6, 2020 we upgraded the API command document to
include setting data limits on Pooled accounts. If you are using API integration to the OSCAR portal, you will now be able to set the upper limit for a SIM card through this integration.

Please refer to the API documentation in the Help section of the OSCAR Platform for the complete list of API commands.

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New Account Notification Feature Now Available in OSCAR

In a continuing effort to provide unsurpassed service and control over your account,  we launched a new “Alarm” feature in the OSCAR platform. This feature is available in both Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) accounts and Pooled Data accounts with slight differences based on account type.

PAYG Account Alarms

Each category (Data Use, Data Packages, Money Use, SMS Use, Voice Use) has particular Alarms which can be configured. For example, the “Data Use” category has these Default Alarms available:

  • SIM cards with data usage for the past 7 above 0.5MB

  • SIM cards with no data usage for the last 1 days

  • SIM cards with no usage (data and SMS) for the 1 days

and the “Data Packages” has these categories available:

  • SIM cards with Data Package used up before the package renewal date

  • SIM cards with data packages used 10% of package data

Pooled Account Alarms

For Pooled Data accounts, the current Default  Alarms are:

  • SIM cards sends 10 SMS within 1 days

  • SIM cards with data usage for the past 7 above 0.5MB

  • SIM cards with no data usage for the last 1 days

  • SIM cards with no usage (data and SMS) for the last 1 days

  • SIM cards with the usage 10% over allotment

  • SIMs roaming outside of countries of data pool

Once enabled, you will receive an email to the Master Admin email address as well as a notification on the new “Alarms” tab which will appear in the main menu of OSCAR. We tried to create what we thought were the most important and pertinent Alarms. If there are alarms you think would be helpful, please send us any suggestions to feedback@onesimcard.com

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Updating Multiple User Names & Device Information in OSCAR Is Now Even Easier

We received a lot of feedback asking for the ability to update the User Name and Device fields for multiple SIMs at once in the OSCAR Portal. Recently we added this capability in the SIM card page of OSCAR. If you select multiple SIMs (checkbox to the right of the SIM card number) then scroll down to the bottom of the page, there are 2 new bulk operations, “Set User Name” & “Set Device Type” available.

Most clients use User Name to identify the location or end customer name for the SIM, and updating this field makes it much easier to sort and filter your SIM cards by this value.