Case Study: The Role of an IoT Gateway in EV Charging Management

For a Charge Point Operator (CPO), an offline EV charger is just an expensive "brick" that generates no revenue. This case study shows how a leading CPO used a Robustel cellular IoT Gateway to solve their biggest challenge: unreliable connectivity. By deploying an industrial IoT gateway to each charger, they achieved 99.9%+ uptime via 4G/LTE Dual-SIM failover, secured all OCPP transactions with a VPN, and used RCMS to slash service "truck rolls" by 90% through remote reboots, transforming their network into a reliable, profitable business.

The electric vehicle revolution is here, and charging stations are popping up on every corner. For Charge Point Operators (CPOs), this is a massive opportunity. But it's also a high-stakes, low-margin business where uptime is everything.

Think about it: an EV driver pulls up to your charger, taps their card... and gets a "Network Error." They're not just frustrated; they're stranded. They'll use another app, find a competitor, and never come back.

This is the CPO's nightmare. A charger that's "offline" isn't just an inconvenience; it's a 100% loss of revenue and a customer service disaster. This is a story about the unsung hero that solves this problem: the industrial IoT gateway.

A major CPO was expanding rapidly, placing chargers in retail parking lots, fleet depots, and curbside locations. Their initial strategy was to "piggyback" on site-host internet.

This was, in a word, a catastrophe.

• Problem 1: Unreliable Connectivity. They relied on the store's guest Wi-Fi or a single wired Ethernet drop. Wi-Fi passwords changed. Janitors unplugged their cables. Their chargers were offline an estimated 20% of the time, wiping out all profit.
• Problem 2: No Remote Control. When a charger (EVSE) froze—a common occurrence—it required a $200+ "truck roll" for a technician to drive to the site just to flip the power switch.
• Problem 3: Security Risks. Plugging their financial hardware into an unknown, "flat" guest network was a massive OT security and PCI compliance risk.

They needed a self-sufficient, secure, and ultra-reliable connectivity solution for their EV charging management platform. They needed a professional IoT Gateway solution.

The CPO made a critical strategic shift: every new charger would be deployed with its own dedicated cellular IoT Gateway. They chose a portfolio of Robustel industrial 4G routers (like the R1520 and R5020 Lite), which function as a perfect iot gateway ev charging solution.

This single industrial iot gateway was the key to solving all three problems.

This was the "killer app." Instead of relying on someone else's Wi-Fi, the IoT Gateway provided its own connection.

• How it Works: The gateway was equipped with SIM cards from two different carriers (e.g., AT&T and T-Mobile). Robustel's "Smart Roaming" feature constantly monitors the primary connection.
• The Result: If Carrier A's network dropped, the IoT Gateway automatically and instantly failed over to Carrier B. The charger never went offline. This single feature moved their network uptime from a disastrous ~80% to a carrier-grade 99.9%+.

Add One Product: R1520 Global Add One Product: R5020 Lite

The charger hardware (EVSE) speaks OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol) to the CPO's cloud platform.This traffic includes payment authorizations and start/stop commands. It must be secure.

• How it Works: The Robustel IoT Gateway is a powerful security device. It was configured to automatically establish a secure, encrypted IPsec VPN tunnel to the CPO's central platform.
• The Result: All OCPP traffic was wrapped in a private tunnel, making it invisible to anyone on the internet. This isolated the charger, met PCI compliance for payments, and secured their revenue stream. This is a core function of a professional IoT Gateway.

This was the TCO saver. The CPO's entire fleet of 1,000+ Robustel IoT Gateway devices was managed from a single, central dashboard using Add One Product: RCMS (Robustel Cloud Manager Service).

• How it Works: An IoT Gateway at a charger in Miami showed as "Offline."
• The Old Way: Dispatch a truck. ($200 cost)
• The RCMS Way: The support desk remotely logs into RCMS, finds the device, and uses the platform's remote control features to power-cycle the gateway's POE port or reboot the device.
• The Result: The charger (and the IoT Gateway) came back online in 5 minutes. The truck roll was eliminated. They could also use RCMS to push security patches or new VPN configurations to their entire IoT Gateway fleet at once.

The business impact of this IoT Gateway strategy was immediate and profound.

• Slashed O&M Costs: They reported a 90% reduction in downtime-related service calls, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in "truck roll" costs.
• Maximized Revenue & Uptime: By achieving 99.9%+ connectivity, they ensured their chargers were always available to sell electricity, directly boosting revenue.
• Accelerated Deployment: Using a cellular IoT Gateway meant they could deploy a charger anywhere with power, without waiting weeks for the site's IT department to run a cable.

This case study proves that for EV charging management, the IoT Gateway is not an "accessory." It is the business. The reliability of your charging station is 100% dependent on the reliability of its connection.

A cheap, unreliable consumer router or a dependency on "free" Wi-Fi is a recipe for failure. A professional cellular IoT gateway with dual-SIM failover and a robust remote management platform like RCMS is the only foundation for building a scalable, secure, and profitable EV charging network.