Originally published in Comms Business.
We’ve expanded this version with practical guidance and deeper insight drawn from our work with over 600 partners.
If you want to know why so many IoT projects fail before they scale, look at the connectivity.
Not because the technology isn’t there. In fact, the connectivity toolkit has never been bigger:
Fixed line and fibre can still play their part too, delivering stable throughput for enterprise sites and heavy IT workloads.
The failures happen because of a simple trap: we default to what we know.
Too often, that means throwing every device onto a fixed line, even when it makes no sense. Or worse, bolting consumer SIMs into business-critical IoT solutions.
Those defaults feel safe and familiar, but they rarely fit the task.
And in IoT, when the connectivity doesn’t fit, the solution doesn’t scale. It means failed deployments, expensive firefighting, and a customer who never comes back.
For the Channel, that’s a costly mistake — and a massive opportunity.
Take fixed line. It’s the go-to for most resellers, because that’s what businesses are used to buying.
But what if the site is temporary? Or rural? Or needs to go live next week, not next month?
IoT devices don’t wait six weeks for fibre to be installed. They’re deployed on construction sites, in vehicles, or across rural estates. They’re designed to move, scale, or switch on instantly.
Fixed line suddenly becomes the wrong answer to these scenarios: slow to rollout, rigid, and often unavailable.
Consumer SIMs don’t stack up too well either. They look cheap up front, but put one in a lift alarm or a CCTV camera and you’ll quickly discover the hidden costs: no resilience, no visibility, no way to control usage. The first outage or overage bill wipes out the saving — and drags the reseller into costly support cycles.
Defaults are easy to sell. But they’re harder to live with.
Read more: Why using consumer SIMs in IoT is a false economy. Consumer SIMs look cheap at the start — but in IoT they cause outages, overages, and costly support cycles. Here’s why they drain more margin than they save, and what to use instead.
Solution-fit connectivity flips the selling mindset. Instead of asking “what’s available?” you ask “what does this solution actually need?”
That means profiling the use case first:
For IoT devices, that could mean:
For heavy duty enterprise sites, perhaps ones relying on cloud operations, it’s a different profile: Fixed line can still provide stable throughput, but resilience now demands cellular backup, and pre-ethernet is often the fastest route to launch.
No one connectivity technology is “better” across the board, but the principle is the same: fit the connectivity to the task.
Here’s what it looks like in practice:
Construction: One partner deployed multi-network SIMs across movable site cabins, avoiding a constant cycle of re-provisioning and keeping operations running.
Healthcare: Another switched a telecare deployment to LTE-M, extending device life beyond the usual 2 years without battery swaps. That’s reducing site visits and truck rolls, while cutting the carbon footprint.
Retail: A high-street chain now launches all their permanent and pop-up stores immediately by using cellular-first rather than waiting for fixed installs.
Selling connectivity as a commodity — “here’s a SIM, here’s a circuit” — drives margins down. But selling solution-fit does the opposite:
Making solution-fit part of your sales motion doesn’t mean slowing deals down with technical lectures or acronyms. It means asking better questions up front:
The answers steer you to the right option, and give you the language to frame it in business terms.
Not just “we’ll use NB-IoT,” but “we’ll use a network designed for ultra-low power, so your devices run for ten years without a truck roll.”
Not just “multi-network SIMs,” but “your cameras will stay online and keep your assets and staff protected, even if one operator’s network drops.”
Market forces are pushing the case for solution-fit even harder:
Read more: PSTN switch-off: Why cellular is the missing piece in the UK’s infrastructure reset. The PSTN switch-off is forcing legacy devices onto new networks. Cellular isn’t just a stopgap — it’s the resilient, future-proof choice for lifts, alarms, and critical services.
All of these trends create space for the Channel to step in with solution-fit answers.
MNOs won’t sell this way. Their scale depends on selling data in bulk, not mapping the right tech to each customer’s workflow.
But resellers and MSPs are close enough to the problem to understand it.
You sit with the customer, hear the operational pain points (often the ones they’ve learned to live with), and can package the right blend of connectivity to solve them. Whether that’s cellular, fixed, or hybrid.
That’s why solution-fit is more than just a technical choice. It’s a commercial differentiator. It’s how the Channel stops competing on price and starts winning on value.
Here’s how to frame it with customers:
“We don’t just sell connectivity. We match the right technology to your exact solution, so your devices run longer, stay connected everywhere, and avoid costly outages. That’s how we keep your business moving — and your margins protected.”
Then before you spec connectivity, ask your customer:
Defaults cost you deals.
Put everything on fixed line, and you’ll lose customers who need speed and flexibility. Rely on consumer SIMs, and you’ll spend more time firefighting outages with no visibility or control than growing accounts.
But when you lead with solution-fit connectivity, you become the architect of your customer’s success. You cut costs out of support, put value back into pricing, and build deals and relationships that last.
The Channel’s edge isn’t in selling more of the same. It’s in matching the right connectivity to the right solution.
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