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23-07-2015, 12:28 PM
Coming soon: Death of the SIM card
A recent report from the Financial Times brought news that both Samsung and Apple are close to agreeing on a common architecture standard for an electronic SIM (subscriber identity module) card that would replace physical SIMs completely. It would allow you to change your carrier without having to switch cards at all — an ability that would 'fundamentally change how consumers sign up to mobile operators', as the FT puts it.
Is that a good thing? Well, it depends. On the one hand, you'd be able to switch carriers without switching SIMs. On the other, it means the decline of power among the big telecoms and the rise of, well, the phonemakers. Here's how the Economist explained it last year:
Operators would lose control of the market, but Apple and other devicemakers might gain from it. They would, if regulators let them, be able to choose which operators appeared on the menu when buyers of their phones and tablets were setting them up. The risk: the SIM card's demise leads to less choice and higher prices for users.
So, who decides on the standards that all of these companies use? Probably, the GSM Association. It represents hundreds of telecom companies, and was established in the early 1980s by the European carriers.
A recent report from the Financial Times brought news that both Samsung and Apple are close to agreeing on a common architecture standard for an electronic SIM (subscriber identity module) card that would replace physical SIMs completely. It would allow you to change your carrier without having to switch cards at all — an ability that would 'fundamentally change how consumers sign up to mobile operators', as the FT puts it.
Is that a good thing? Well, it depends. On the one hand, you'd be able to switch carriers without switching SIMs. On the other, it means the decline of power among the big telecoms and the rise of, well, the phonemakers. Here's how the Economist explained it last year:
Operators would lose control of the market, but Apple and other devicemakers might gain from it. They would, if regulators let them, be able to choose which operators appeared on the menu when buyers of their phones and tablets were setting them up. The risk: the SIM card's demise leads to less choice and higher prices for users.
So, who decides on the standards that all of these companies use? Probably, the GSM Association. It represents hundreds of telecom companies, and was established in the early 1980s by the European carriers.
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