What makes a cellular IoT API great? Tobias Goebel

What makes a
cellular IoT API
great?
Tobias Goebel
Principal Product Marketing Manager, Twilio IoT
@tpgoebel
linkedin.com/in/tpgoebel

1 Key SIM management functions that need APIs
2 How cellular IoT APIs support your business objectives
3 Characteristics of a great API – and how to ﬁnd one
(with 15 tips & tricks what to look out for in a vendor API)
2022 TWILIO INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
What I’ll cover today

© 2022 TWILIO INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Data throughput
Range
Sigfox
LoRa
Cellular
NB-IoT
NFC
Cellular
5G (mmwave)
Zigbee
Z-Wave
Thread
Bluetooth
Wiﬁ
Cellular
2G/3G/4G
5G (not mmwave)
Connected Transportation
Manufacturing
Smart Homes
Smart Cities
Energy & Utilities
Wearables / Healthcare
Retail
Smart Buildings
Cellular
Cat-M
Wireless IoT Connectivity Options
ANT
miles
inches
bps mbps/gbps

3 ways to manage SIMs
Web
Console
Customer
Support
Your Workﬂows
(via APIs)

The best SIM management solution makes
managing 50,000 SIMs as easy and
eﬃcient as managing 50

SIM status queries
Network access conﬁguration
SIM activation and deactivation
Which SIM management functions
APIs can help with
Troubleshooting
Device reachability
Billing information and usage records

How cellular IoT APIs support your
business objectives
Enable scalability to
support growth and
expansion
Provide better
troubleshooting
Allow more
customization to align
with the business
Simplify operations
and reduce operating
expenses

Characteristics of a great API
Well documented
and easy to use
– and how to ﬁnd one
Code examples, tutorials, use cases
Jargon-free
Well maintained; like a product in itself

Well documented
and easy to use
Check whether a recently announced feature has been documented
yet. If the documentation is rolled out together with the public
feature announcement, that’s an indication that the product
manager themself may have written it, which is a good sign.
Tip 1

Well documented
and easy to use
Do a web search for a feature to see whether the API
documentation is on the ﬁrst page of results. If it is, that tells you it’s
a page that developers actively use and that it’s relevant enough for
the search engine to highlight.
Tip 2

Well documented
and easy to use
Ask your vendor for a sample bill and a sample log ﬁle. Can you
understand them? Can you easily translate them into useful
information?
Tip 3

Well documented
and easy to use
Put the URL of a documentation page into archive.org to see what
has changed in the last year or two. Have they added examples,
ﬁxed errors, or given more detailed explanations?
Tip 4

Backward compatible
A good API has few to no breaking changes
Devices will live for years in the ﬁeld

Backward compatible
Look at the API versioning. An API with many versions that are no
longer supported — and with no history of when support ended —
is likely more volatile.
Tip 5

Backward compatible
Search for blog posts or news items about
breaking changes for that API.
Tip 6

Reliable and highly available
under stress
An API shouldn’t have downtime
API behavior during your testing != API
behavior in production

under stress
Check for service level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee uptime
and performance of the APIs themselves.
Tip 7

under stress
Find out if there are maintenance windows. Can you do a SIM
activation API call during that time? What could cause your
usage reporting to be delayed? How often do maintenance
windows occur, and how long do they last? Ask questions and
get the answers in writing.
Tip 8

under stress
Search for a vendor status page (often status.companyname.com).
Is there a developer portal or public listing of metrics related to
outages and uptime? Have they had recent big outages? Do they
provide root cause analysis or publish reasons for outages (RFOs)?
When something goes wrong, you’re looking for an honest detailed
explanation that assures you things will improve.
Tip 9

under stress
Get the vendor’s request limits. How many API requests can you
make per second? Or how many concurrent API requests can you
make? If they don’t know, that tells you a lot about the quality of the
API.
Tip 10

Attracts an active developer
community
Open-source repositories
Active forums, current blog posts
Helper libraries you can import

community
Ask your developers if they’ve ever heard of the vendor you’re
evaluating. The answer will tell you how developer-friendly and
developer-focused they are.
Tip 11

community
Research vendor communications with the developer community.
Does the vendor send regular updates? Can you subscribe to a
product newsletter? Do they run regular webinars on new features?
What’s the cadence of product announcements? Do they maintain a
public change log? What documentation do they deliver on release
day to encourage people to build?
Tip 12

Well supported
Doesn’t send you to Sales for questions
Supports developers like they were
paying customers

Well supported
Look at the support plans. Is “Developer” mentioned as a category?
What support does it include?
Tip 13

Well supported
Find out which support channels are oﬀered for free. Is it just email,
or can you use chat or even voice channels?
Tip 14

Well supported
Find out which support channels are oﬀered for free. Is it just email,
or can you use chat or even voice channels?
Tip 15

Twilio Super SIM
Maximum global coverage
on one SIM
Stop managing carriers
Access hundreds of 2G, 3G,
LTE, and IoT networks from
top tier carriers – all via
one multi-IMSI SIM
Choice of networks, with
built-in redundancy
Get reliable service
Select and control which
carriers each of your devices
connect to, with automatic
failover if needed
Efficient operations on a
global IoT-only network
Reduce connectivity TCO
Manage your entire fleet
centrally with APIs & console,
and benefit from constant
platform improvements
Free expert advice and
self-help resources
Accelerate time to value
Prototype and go to production
quickly with free trial, free
resources and free expert
advisory – all pre-contract
No shenanigans
pricing and fulfilment
Predict your costs accurately
Get your SIM orders fulfilled fast
and control your cellular costs with
upfront discounts and never pay
for overages or unused data

Read more about
SIM APIs?
twil.io/SIMAPI

What makes a cellular IoT API great? Tobias Goebel

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