Rendezvous Points

Overview

Rendezvous Points are network infrastructure regions where Soracom Air for Cellular devices establish IP network connectivity. When an Air for Cellular device connects to a mobile network, the cellular connection will be routed to one of Soracom's rendezvous points in order to connect to the Internet, as well as to access Soracom platform services such as Beam, Funnel, Funk, and Harvest.

For plan01s and plan01s - LDV SIMs, the default infrastructure region is based in Frankfurt, Germany. By default, the network connection of all devices will be routed to this infrastructure region, regardless of where the device is located in the world:

Without Rendezvous Point

With a rendezvous point, the network connections for certain devices will be routed to a closer infrastructure region:

With Rendezvous Point


Rendezvous Points

Currently, Soracom maintains the following rendezvous points:

Routing is based on the SIM type or subscription container, the country where the device is located, and whether or not the SIM is attached to a Virtual Private Gateway.

Routing with a VPG

When creating a Virtual Private Gateway, you can select the location where your VPG infrastructure will be created from the list of rendezvous points above. When you then attach your SIMs to the VPG, network connectivity for your devices will be served from the location of your VPG.

If an IoT SIM with global coverage belongs to a VPG, the area where data communication is possible depends on the rendezvous point of the VPG, the IoT SIM subscription, and the carriers in the country that IoT SIM is being used in. The following restrictions apply:

Subscription
VPG Rendezvous Point plan01s / plan01s - LDV plan-NA1 planP1 planX1 planX2 planX3 plan-US plan-US-max plan-US-NA
Frankfurt (Germany)
African and European Carriers Only
Tokyo (Japan)
Japanese Carriers Only

Asian and Oceanic Carriers Only
Oregon (United States)
US Carriers Only

US and Canadian Carriers Only

US Carriers Only
Sydney (Australia)
Australian Carriers Only

Australian Carriers Only

Some examples from this chart would be:

Routing without a VPG

When your SIM is not attached to a VPG, the rendezvous point will be selected based on its SIM type or subscription container, and the country where the device is located:

Device Location
Subscription United States Japan Australia Rest Of World
plan01s Oregon (United States) Tokyo (Japan) Sydney (Australia) Frankfurt (Germany)
plan01s - LDV Oregon (United States) Tokyo (Japan) Sydney (Australia) Frankfurt (Germany)
plan-NA1 Oregon (United States) Frankfurt (Germany) *2
plan-US Oregon (United States)
plan-US-max Oregon (United States)
plan-US-NA Oregon (United States) Oregon (United States) *1
planP1 Tokyo (Japan) Sydney (Australia) Tokyo (Japan) *3
planX1 Tokyo (Japan)
planX2 Tokyo (Japan)
planX3 Frankfurt (Germany) *4 Frankfurt (Germany) *4 Frankfurt (Germany) *4

*1 - For plan-US-NA subscriptions, Rest Of World refers to Canada and Mexico coverage. See Supported Carriers for more information.
*2 - For plan-NA1 subscriptions, Rest Of World refers to Canada coverage. See Supported Carriers for more information.
*3 - For planP1 subscriptions, Rest Of World refers to APAC coverage (excluding Japan). See Supported Carriers for more information.
*4 - For planX3 subscriptions, regional Rendezvous Points are not yet available.

For example, if your device connects to a cellular network in the United States while using a plan01s SIM, its network connection will be routed to the Oregon infrastructure region, and Internet connectivity and Soracom platform services will be provided through this region.


Limitations