In 2018, credit and debit cards overtook cash as the most common form of payment worldwide, a trend accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Across markets like the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, cashless payments have more than doubled, with the UK seeing a drop in cash transactions from nearly half in 2019 to just 17% in 2020.
For merchants, this shift places electronic payments and point-of-sale (POS) systems at the center of retail operations. The global payment processing market is projected to surpass $147 billion by 2027, creating demand for secure, adaptable, and complete payment solutions.
Modern retailers need more than a credit card terminal – they require end-to-end systems that integrate seamlessly with their existing operations and can adapt to industry-specific demands.
Aurora Payments identified a growing need for payment solutions that combine ease of use with robust backend support, all while maintaining security for sensitive customer data. The challenge lay in designing a platform flexible enough to serve multiple verticals, from traditional retail to industry-specific operations, while meeting strict compliance requirements.
“Our aim is to be best-in-class for vertical markets, bringing to them a solution that actually will help them run their business and do more than just payments,“ said Derek Maxwell, Head of Enterprise Data and Automation at Aurora Payments. “Where it used to be credit card terminals that did payments, now the expectation of those merchants who run those businesses is that you’re going to bring to them a more complete solution.”
Aurora Payments offers a full suite of hardware and software, from simple POS systems to advanced eCommerce platforms, ACH, and check processing capabilities. Recent initiatives focus on partnering with developers to create tailored, vertical-specific systems that can integrate with existing infrastructure and scale as the business grows.
When it came to connectivity, Aurora Payments sought a partner that could deliver reliable performance, global coverage, and industry-leading security. Soracom’s Virtual Private Gateway (VPG) met all three needs.
By configuring Soracom VPG with two fixed global IP addresses, Aurora Payments ensured that upstream payment processors could verify the source of any incoming traffic. Only traffic originating from these IPs is accepted, with all others denied – a critical safeguard for payment security.
“When dealing with people’s money, security is a must,” said Maxwell. “Soracom provides that extra layer of security we need to keep our customers’ data from falling into the wrong hands.”
Today, Aurora Payments serves over 23,000 merchants across the United States, processing approximately $10 billion in transactions annually. With Soracom’s secure, scalable connectivity in place, the company is positioned to continue expanding into new verticals and markets, delivering comprehensive payment solutions that help modern retailers thrive in a cashless economy.
“Experience is key for retail and commercial office settings,” says Nick Larkins, QSIC COO and co-founder. “If you can provide a unique, powerful experience when people are immersed in your brand environment, there’s the opportunity to give them something valuable and unique. People always choose experience over convenience or product quality.”
Founded in 2013 as Australia’s first commercial music streaming service, QSIC quickly evolved into the world’s only streaming platform with AI designed to positively influence customer mood and behavior. Drawing from over 12 million commercially licensed tracks, QSIC’s AI predicts the right music to play, at the right time, location, and volume, to create an environment that keeps customers engaged and connected to the brand.
This model has attracted global brands like Toyota, WeWork, McDonald’s, and 7-Eleven, helping QSIC deliver brand-enhancing soundscapes to millions of people every week across thousands of locations.
QSIC’s founders started in the smart home industry, building early connected systems that integrated lighting, HVAC, and security controls. Their work with commercial clients revealed a surprising gap in business audio solutions, many relied on outdated CD distribution or improvised streaming setups that introduced legal and technical risks.
In response, QSIC built a modern, wireless commercial audio platform with integrated optimization, testing, and automation capabilities. Today, QSIC integrates with existing speaker systems and is one of the only native commercial music services on SONOS in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Its API also connects to BI, CRM, and POS systems, enabling the AI to learn which tracks and tempos drive desired outcomes. Patented multi-zone listening technology keeps music at the right volume, while in-store sensors monitor sound levels and adjust playback automatically.
“We can control the speakers individually through the network and increase or decrease volumes as needed,” explains Larkins.
For QSIC, reliable connectivity is essential to keeping music streaming and systems optimized. Public Wi-Fi is inconsistent, with varied onboarding and security requirements, and offers little direct control.
“If the internet goes down, we need a backup solution,” says Larkins. “We need to be able to log in and diagnose problems remotely, without hiccups.”
After testing multiple providers, QSIC chose Soracom for its global coverage, scalability, and cost efficiency. Soracom’s infrastructure allows QSIC to manage its network independently and securely, isolating its systems from customer networks for easier deployment and fewer IT dependencies.
“Soracom gives us the ability to implement and manage our infrastructure in a way that’s isolated from other company networks, so we don’t need to rely on external teams,” says Larkins.
QSIC now streams through more than 10,000 devices worldwide, each tailored to its unique retail environment. Soracom’s connectivity ensures the team can manage, update, and troubleshoot remotely, even in remote or rural areas.
“With Soracom, we maintain a direct line of communication to audio devices and can adapt to the needs of people on the ground. We can do it all remotely, via the cloud,” says Larkins.
As QSIC continues to expand, its AI-powered platform is poised to play a larger role in enhancing human experience in commercial spaces, offering not just entertainment, but potentially contributing to improved mood and well-being for millions.
“The world is at the beginning of the Goldilocks zone of IoT,” Larkins concludes. “Over the next 10 years, it’s going to be huge. I encourage businesses to start planning their IoT strategy now.”
Founders and innovators often begin with a spark of inspiration – one that demands the right technology to move from prototype to global deployment. For Jaime Macias, Creative Director at studio black and founder of Lensley Automatic, that spark became Lensley, a freestanding, unenclosed photo booth kiosk that autonomously captures studio-quality images.
“I’m a tinkerer,” says Macias. “I’m happiest when I’m prototyping. My office is filled with tools to make things real that don’t exist yet.”
Launched in 2009, Lensley has grown into a full suite of tools used by museums, retailers, sporting venues, public events, and private functions – anywhere people gather and memories are made. The mission remains simple: capture authentic, joyful moments and make them part of the story brands share with their audiences.
From its beginnings as a single in-office prototype, Lensley has evolved through more than a decade of iteration. “Every single component that could break has broken. Every piece that needed to be replaced has been replaced,” says Macias. “Each new iteration has been more reliable.”
One of the biggest challenges? Connectivity. Lensley is often deployed in remote or temporary settings with limited access to Wi-Fi. Macias turned to cellular as a backup, but found traditional providers expensive and inflexible.
That changed with Teltonika routers paired with Soracom IoT connectivity. Soracom’s low-cost SIMs, pooled data across devices, and centralized management made scaling straightforward.
“Soracom gave me everything that I was looking for and needed,” says Macias. “I’m no longer paying for what I don’t need, and the service is reliable wherever we go.”
After years of testing corporate accounts, personal accounts, and a range of modems, Macias found Soracom’s IoT-first approach a perfect fit. The combination of cost efficiency, device pooling, and real-time management tools gave Lensley the control it needed.
“With Soracom, I can scale without worrying about hidden costs or downtime,” says Macias. “The sales team is accessible, the tech works, and we’re no longer tied to overpriced legacy systems.”
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Lensley to innovate further—launching touchless, socially distanced photo experiences like a drive-through Santa setup where families could stand 12 feet away but still get their holiday photo.
Macias also envisions using Lensley to document social change over time, installing a unit in a single location for years or even decades to capture evolving communities.
“I care about keeping people safe and connected,” he says. “I’m looking at new opportunities and continuing to make things that start out as sketches.”
As Lensley expands into retail, events, and new experiential formats, its combination of creative design and Soracom-powered connectivity ensures every installation delivers the same dependable, joyful experience, anywhere in the world.
Founded as the national Sigfox operator for Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, HELIOT Group delivers reliable low-power, wide-area (LPWA) connectivity through a distributed network of over 800 base stations. Their infrastructure is designed to support the rapidly growing demand for IoT applications, where small sensors and devices need to communicate efficiently and at scale.
Sigfox connectivity offers a unique balance of extremely low energy consumption, long transmission range, and low cost. Devices can transmit small data packets across distances of up to 10km in cities and up to 50km in rural regions. This makes Sigfox an ideal choice for use cases like asset tracking, smart building monitoring, and environmental sensing, applications that don’t require high bandwidth but benefit from wide-area coverage and years-long device battery life.
Heliot’s mission is to make IoT accessible and sustainable. By providing a strong backbone for Sigfox-based solutions, they help innovators, enterprises, and municipalities bring projects to life, whether it’s monitoring air quality in urban areas, tracking assets across borders, or supporting smart agriculture in rural communities.
Sigfox already connects more than 10 million devices across 65 countries, proving its value as a global IoT standard. But for a regional operator like HELIOT, ensuring service quality at scale presents unique challenges.
One of the most significant issues is Europe’s fragmented telecom market. Many IoT projects require multi-national coverage, yet establishing individual agreements with separate carriers in each country adds unnecessary complexity and cost. For customers, this can translate into deployment delays, administrative hurdles, and uncertainty around reliability.
Heliot also recognized the risk of relying solely on a single type of connectivity. A network outage, even a short one, could disrupt mission-critical applications, lead to lost data, and in some cases raise safety or compliance concerns. The challenge was clear: design a network with world-class reliability while keeping service affordable and straightforward for customers.
Heliot engineered its Sigfox network to include multiple connectivity options at every base station. By supporting several wireless operators simultaneously, the network creates a built-in failover system that ensures service continuity. If one carrier experiences downtime, traffic can automatically switch to another, maintaining seamless coverage for end users.
This approach not only reduces the risk of service interruptions but also strengthens Heliot’s ability to meet demanding service-level expectations. Customers deploying IoT devices for asset tracking, security monitoring, or industrial control can rely on consistent, resilient connectivity without having to manage multiple operator agreements themselves.
To make this possible, Heliot needed a back-end cellular connectivity solution capable of delivering secure, reliable coverage across all three countries they serve. That solution also needed to integrate cost-effectively into their existing service model, which prioritizes efficiency and scalability.
Heliot’s extensive experience working with wireless providers made the advantages of Soracom immediately clear. Soracom’s global, multi-carrier coverage gave HELIOT a simple way to unify connectivity across Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, reducing administrative overhead while enhancing resilience.
Rapid deployment was another critical factor. Soracom’s console and APIs allow Heliot to provision devices instantly, monitor connections in real time, and manage hundreds of SIMs with full transparency and control. For a growing network already spanning more than 225 base stations, these capabilities are essential to delivering best-in-class service.
Perhaps most importantly, Soracom’s pay-as-you-go model aligns perfectly with HELIOT’s business case. Since cellular is used primarily as a failover resource in their architecture, costs are incurred only when needed, eliminating waste while preserving reliability. Together, these advantages make Soracom a trusted partner in building Europe’s most reliable Sigfox network.
Over the next two years, HELIOT Group plans to expand Sigfox availability to cover 85% of the population across Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland. This expansion will extend the benefits of affordable, low-power IoT connectivity to more industries, communities, and citizens across the region.
At the same time, Heliot is looking outward. With global demand for Sigfox IoT solutions continuing to rise, the company is exploring opportunities to extend its model into new markets. By combining Sigfox’s proven low-power capabilities with Soracom’s global cellular integration, HELIOT aims to deliver scalable IoT connectivity solutions across borders.
Ultimately, Helio’s vision is to provide the foundation for a smarter, more connected world – helping innovators bring IoT projects to life with reliability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency at scale.
Parco, a popular chain of department stores, wanted to better understand how visitors move through their stores and engage with different areas. By gathering real-time data on customer traffic and location, the retailer could gain valuable insights to support sales and marketing strategies.
To explore these possibilities, Parco launched a pilot project at the Parco Museum. The initiative focused on collecting visitor information using image-sensing technology that could detect and analyze traffic patterns without storing or transmitting personally identifiable data.
This innovative approach gave Parco a new way to capture actionable insights while respecting customer privacy. By linking IoT technology with its existing operations, the retailer set the stage for smarter, data-driven decision-making.
As a competitive retailer, Parco needed a solution that was not only affordable but also highly secure. The company knew that the reliability of its connectivity would directly impact the success of its consumer analysis system.
Because the project involved collecting information derived from images, data protection and compliance were critical. While the system discarded specific images after sensing customer movement, Parco still needed to ensure that any transmitted information remained safe from outside threats.
At the same time, Parco wanted to avoid the limitations and risks associated with Wi-Fi networks, which can be difficult to secure and manage at scale. They needed a solution that offered secure, flexible, and cost-conscious connectivity right out of the box.
To meet these requirements, Parco turned to Soracom. By installing Soracom Air SIM cards into their IoT devices, the company was able to establish secure, cellular-based connectivity without any additional equipment. The ability to connect virtually anywhere gave them the flexibility to deploy quickly across multiple locations.
For transmitting data, Parco used Soracom Beam to handle protocol conversion. By converting HTTP to HTTPS in the cloud, Beam ensured that data could be sent securely to Amazon API Gateway without requiring additional relay servers. This also helped reduce device power consumption and data usage, streamlining the entire process.
Beam’s credential management and custom header functions were especially valuable. These allowed Parco to authenticate access to AWS at scale without requiring an individual authentication key for each device – saving significant time, cost, and operational complexity.
Soracom gave Parco the right combination of affordability, security, and scalability. With Soracom Air, they had reliable connectivity that could easily be deployed and managed across their devices. With Soracom Beam, they gained the ability to encrypt and transmit data securely, all while reducing power and bandwidth demands.
This comprehensive solution allowed Parco to implement authentication and data protection measures without compromising ease of use. Instead of investing in costly infrastructure or managing a complex set of device keys, they were able to manage everything directly in the cloud.
Ultimately, Soracom’s services helped Parco stay competitive while ensuring that their customer analytics project was both secure and cost-effective, a critical balance for a retailer operating in today’s fast-moving market.
Looking ahead, Parco plans to extend its consumer analytics system beyond the initial pilot. Future enhancements include customer tier analysis to better segment visitors and track repeat behaviors, as well as detailed route mapping to understand how customers move through different parts of the store.
By combining IoT data with marketing strategies, Parco hopes to refine promotions, optimize store layouts, and create more personalized shopping experiences. These insights will allow them to strengthen customer engagement while increasing operational efficiency.
With Soracom’s secure connectivity and data management tools, Parco has the flexibility to continue scaling its analytics capabilities and unlock even greater value from real-time customer data.
Wine is particularly sensitive to environmental changes, and even slight deviations in temperature, humidity, or light exposure can affect its quality. For wineries and distributors, ensuring that bottles are stored and transported under ideal conditions is essential not only for product quality but also for brand reputation.
The challenge lies in the complexity of the global supply chain. A single shipment of wine may travel across multiple countries, distributors, and retailers before reaching the end consumer. Each handoff represents a potential point of failure, making real-time monitoring and secure data transfer mission-critical.
For ISTMOS, creating a truly effective quality assurance system meant enabling every stakeholder, whether a local distributor or an international retailer, to access and trust consistent data across the entire supply chain. That required an IoT solution capable of delivering reliable connectivity worldwide.
To address this challenge, ISTMOS designed a system that integrates IoT gateways, environmental sensors, and a customizable decision support platform. These gateways continuously measure and record temperature, humidity, and luminosity, triggering alerts whenever conditions deviate from safe thresholds.
Each gateway is connected through Soracom Air SIMs, providing a secure cellular link that works across borders and networks. Once collected, sensor data is transmitted to the ISTMOS platform via Soracom Beam, which securely relays information while preserving critical metadata such as timestamps, device IDs, and geographic location.
With this system in place, wineries, distributors, and retailers gain continuous visibility into product conditions. From the moment a bottle leaves the vineyard until it reaches the consumer, ISTMOS ensures that any issue is detected early and addressed before it impacts quality.
For ISTMOS, data integrity and system reliability are non-negotiable. By leveraging Soracom Air, the company can easily provision and manage SIM cards, ensuring that new devices can be deployed quickly without complex setup. The global reach of Soracom’s network also allows ISTMOS to scale its solution internationally with confidence.
Meanwhile, Soracom Beam streamlines the process of securely transmitting IoT data from devices to the cloud. This not only reduces development overhead but also ensures that sensitive information travels safely, giving stakeholders peace of mind.
The combination of Soracom’s connectivity and management tools allows ISTMOS to operate efficiently at scale, reducing operational overhead while focusing on delivering a reliable, AI-supported monitoring solution for the global wine supply chain.
As a growing startup, ISTMOS continues to innovate by expanding its system capabilities and exploring additional Soracom services. With interest in extending beyond wine into other high-value goods, the company sees enormous potential for IoT-enabled supply chain management.
Future plans include testing services such as Soracom Endorse for authentication, Soracom Funnel for direct cloud integration, and Soracom Gate for building secure private networks. By incorporating these tools, ISTMOS aims to further enhance transparency, scalability, and security across its platform.
With Soracom as a trusted partner, ISTMOS is well positioned to scale its solution across industries and ensure that products sensitive to environmental conditions maintain quality throughout their journey.
For most retailers, VPNs are the default solution for creating secure backup lines and protecting sensitive point-of-sale (POS) data. However, managing separate VPN connections for each store can quickly become costly and difficult to scale, particularly for chains with dozens of locations.
Hands realized that their reliance on VPNs was not sustainable. Establishing and maintaining a dedicated VPN for each location not only created significant upfront and recurring costs, but also increased administrative overhead when VPNs expired and required recertification.
Beyond costs, VPNs still left potential vulnerabilities. A cellular line connected to a global IP address exposed each device to possible external threats, creating an urgent need for a more secure and manageable alternative.
Hands chose to replace its backup VPN lines with Soracom Air SIMs across all retail store business terminals. By doing so, each terminal gained secure connectivity to central servers without the complexity of traditional VPN infrastructure.
The company went further by adopting Soracom Canal, creating a closed network that restricted server access to authorized devices only. This not only safeguarded sensitive business data but also gave IT teams better control over which terminals could access specific resources.
The benefits extended beyond security. At Hands’ flagship locations, Soracom connectivity replaced wired LANs, saving significant time and money. Instead of spending months and millions of yen on construction and installation, Soracom allowed them to deploy new terminals in days with minimal upfront investment.
For Hands, Soracom offered the perfect balance of flexibility and control. With Air SIMs installed in each terminal, secure connectivity could be established immediately, eliminating the need for ongoing VPN maintenance and renewal.
The Soracom User Console gave IT teams centralized visibility into device connectivity and performance. Adjustments that previously required site visits or complex reconfiguration could now be handled remotely with just a few clicks.
In short, Soracom delivered a streamlined, cost-effective networking solution that addressed both Hands’ operational requirements and its strict security needs, while positioning the retailer for future scalability.
Hands has already begun extending its Soracom-based system to its Osaka stores and plans to expand the approach nationwide. Over time, the retailer aims to completely eliminate reliance on WANs and LANs, relying instead on cellular IoT for secure, flexible connectivity.
The company has also started to equip its iPad business terminals with Soracom connectivity. By avoiding VPN setup for each new device, Hands saves time for its staff and reduces technical complexity across its IT environment.
Looking forward, Hands plans to leverage Soracom’s authentication and access restriction features to further strengthen application security. With these steps, the company is building a resilient, future-ready network architecture that can keep pace with the rapidly evolving retail industry.