From Private APNs to Soracom VPG: Faster, Simpler, More Secure IoT Connections
Written by: Daniel O'Connor
Published: September 9, 2025
For years, businesses have relied on private APNs to keep IoT devices off the public internet and maintain a more controlled path for their data. They became the standard answer for organizations needing security and control over their devices.
The reality, however, is that private APNs always come with trade-offs. They can take weeks to build, require complex integrations, and offer little flexibility once deployed.
In helping customers connect millions of devices, I’ve seen these challenges stall proof-of-concepts, inflate budgets, and frustrate teams.
The Problem with Private APNs
Private APNs do their job; they keep devices off the public internet and provide a controlled route for data. Unfortunately, they also introduce consistent challenges that have held many IoT projects back:
- Time – Provisioning or making changes may take weeks, delaying POCs and go-live schedules.
- Cost – Extra vendor coordination, field visits, and extended testing drives expenses up.
- Complexity – RADIUS, VPNs, and firewall rules require multiple teams to work in sequence.
- Risk – Limited visibility and control creates blind spots, slowing incident response and raising security concerns.
The result? Stalled projects, ballooning gets, and frustrated customers.
Soracom VPG: Private APN, Without the Wait
Soracom’s Virtual Private Gateway (VPG) offers all the benefits of a private APN, but without the pain.
- Self-service: Create and configure a VPG in the Soracom User console within minutes
- Private IP addressing: Assign static or dynamic private IPs inside an isolated network you control.
- Direct cloud integration: Route traffic straight into AWS, Azure, or your own data center, bypassing the public internet entirely.
- Controlled internet access: Allow outbound traffic only to approved destinations, with full visibility and filtering built in.
Why This Matters
With the Soracom VPG, you are not waiting months for a carrier to provision a service. You are not building complex VPN’s just to get traffic back into your network. Instead, you can establish a secure and private data path for your SIMs in minutes – one you can scale globally and integrate directly with your servers and or applications.
After a decade of delivering private APNs, Soracom VPG represents the next step forward. It delivers the control businesses expect, but finally with the speed, flexibility and simplicity that modern IoT projects demand.
Real-World Example: Faster Troubleshooting
Imagine a customer device that cannot reach a critical server. With a traditional private APN, troubleshooting is slow, involving a prolonged back and forth using network traces, before the customer eventually requests a packet capture. That request then has to go through the team managing the PGW, which will schedule a capture session with the customer, take the capture, filter it, and then send it back. What should have been a simple check can take hours or even days.
With the Soracom VPG, it is completely different. As the customer, you can use the packet capture feature directly from the console to capture a single SIM or the entire VPG, and download the capture when you are done. Instant, fast, and no waiting for the MNO. Troubleshooting that used to take days can now be done in minutes.
The Future of IoT Connectivity
Private APNs may have solved many of yesterday’s problems, but Soracom VPG is designed for today’s IoT reality.
With global scalability and fast, direct integration with the cloud, VPG gives users the control of their business demands, without the delays, costs, and complexity that hold projects back.
The future of IoT connections is faster, simpler, and more secure. With Soracom VPG, that future is already here.
