Tokyo – October 11, 2026 -- NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS, Inc. will roll out "Pro," a new tier of its docomo business SIGN IoT network-as-a-service, in March 2027 for customers running tens of thousands of connected devices in Japan and overseas. The offering centralizes domestic and international connectivity management, automates SIM operations and adds support for the SGP.32 eSIM standard.
GSMA Intelligence projects 38.7 billion IoT connections by 2030
GSMA Intelligence forecasts that global IoT connections will reach 38.7 billion by 2030, with business connections accounting for 63% of the total. NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS says corporate fleets are growing from several thousand to tens of thousands of devices, which raises the cost of managing them. The company cites SIM lifecycle management (activation, suspension, termination), integration with external systems, communications monitoring and failure response as the main operational pain points. It adds that Japan's labor shortages are pushing manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, social infrastructure and mobility companies toward autonomous driving, remote monitoring and AI.
Pro automates SIM activation and termination through a portal and APIs
Customers can configure and activate SIMs at shipment and deployment through a portal or APIs. Integration with customer systems can automate activation, suspension and termination, which cuts the effort needed to launch services across large device volumes.
A common operational platform lets customers monitor SIM and device status and usage in Japan and abroad. Anomaly detection, notifications and contract or configuration changes can be automated, reducing the workload for operations staff who now check several systems.
Patented threat blocking works on individual SIMs
The patented security function ships as standard. It uses threat intelligence to detect communications between IoT devices and malicious servers in real time, and customers can block traffic per SIM. Security events appear on the same operational platform as SIM and device status, which NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS says speeds up the first response to anomalies.
APIs expose SIM information and device status to business systems and service platforms. Customers can build value-added services such as remote control and status notifications with less development work. Real-time visibility into communications and device conditions lets operators diagnose faults remotely, cutting on-site work and the risk of service interruptions.
SGP.32 support lets one product configuration serve multiple countries
Pro will support SGP.32, the GSMA standard for remote provisioning of IoT eSIMs, from March 2027. Customers will be able to change communications profiles through a portal or APIs after devices have been manufactured and shipped. Manufacturers can ship a single product configuration across multiple countries and regions instead of building country-specific variants. The feature is unavailable where communications are subject to regulatory restrictions.
Communications service providers can also be switched remotely after launch without replacing physical SIMs.
Docomo Business Forum'26 demo set for October 8-9 in Tokyo
NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS will present the service at NTT docomo Business Forum'26 on October 8 and 9, 2026, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at The Prince Park Tower Tokyo. Admission is free but by invitation only. Pricing was not disclosed, and interested parties are directed to NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS sales representatives.
Under its AI-Centric ICT Platform concept, the company plans to keep enhancing security features and expanding functions for using IoT data.