KPN says its IoT & M2M business has been running since 2010, back when the market still used the M2M label and the main use cases were smart meters and telematics services.
The operator has since expanded the portfolio beyond connectivity into data management, device management, and hardware. Maurice Janssen Duijghuijsen, KPN’s vice president of sales for IoT and Data Driven Solutions, said the company now has 120 people in the Netherlands, including 30 focused on sales.
Partner delivery and device management
Capestone acts as a distributor that configures, tests, and delivers Cradlepoint routers with KPN SIM cards. KPN says that model helps it serve enterprise IoT deployments alongside its own direct sales and support.
The most concrete example in the interview is Videojet. KPN and Cradlepoint are working together to provide 4G/5G access for 50,000 industrial printers, while the routers keep those printers separate from the companies’ corporate networks.
Roaming scale is the other sales pitch
KPN says a substantial share of its IoT revenue comes from outside the Netherlands. Maurice Janssen Duijghuijsen said KPN has roaming agreements with more than 600 carriers worldwide, and that this underpins cross-border IoT connectivity.
That matters for Videojet’s printers as well: the setup lets Videojet monitor each unit remotely at any time, while KPN supplies the Cradlepoint routers with KPN IoT SIM cards integrated. Maurice said the arrangement cuts maintenance costs and is more sustainable.
What this means for IoT buyers
For enterprise IoT buyers, the number to watch is not the marketing layer but the operating model: KPN is pairing roaming agreements with partner-led router delivery and embedded SIMs.
The Videojet deployment shows how that model is being used in practice, with remote access to the printers and isolation from customer networks built into the setup.