Apple vs. Nokia, RIM and Motorola On Nano-SIM Standard

angry tapir writes "Next week, two proposals for a new, smaller SIM card, dubbed nano-SIM — one backed by Apple and the other by Nokia, Research In Motion and Motorola Mobility — will go head-to-head as ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute) decides which card future smartphones and tablets will use. Measuring approximately 12 millimeters by 9 millimeters, the new SIM will be about 30 percent smaller than the micro-SIM. The thickness of the cards has been reduced by about 15 percent, according to Giesecke & Devrient. The nano-SIM is also approximately 60 percent smaller than traditional-size SIM cards."

Comments

Too small

[Baron_Yam]

After a certain point, you may as well forget the SIM and just build it into the device.

Items that are meant to be removeable and transferable need to be large enough for a consumer to manipulate with their fingers.

Re:Too small

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a /sim/-folder on the microSD?

Your phone provider could just email the file to you, you copy the file to the card and turn on the phone.

Re:Too small

[QuasiSteve]

Actually, that is the step that should have been taken; software SIM

Why they're still going for a card is beyond me - but perhaps it has something to do with licensing.

The Giesecke & Devrient company mentioned in the article actually announced their nano SIM card last year:
http://www.gi-de.com/en/about_g_d/press/press_releases/G%26D-Presents-World%E2%80%99s-First-Nano-SIM-Card-g17024.jsp

Now unfortunately it has become a battle between companies that want to give their own little twist to it. Why? So they can charge license fees, of course. FRAND - yes, but $5 per device surely is completely fair? Especially if you're the company that gets that $5 per competitor's device.

For now it looks like Apple is likely to be that company, as it already has several large European providers on board and is also trying to get a larger vote within ETSI. (Financial Times).

Re:Too small

[beelsebob]

Apple tried to do this, unfortunately, all the telcos baulked at the idea that any phone would be trivially reprogrammable to join another network –all you would need to do was tap a button on the phone and be instantly on a new contract.

Re:Too small

[beelsebob]

Actually, exactly the reverse was the issue. When apple proposed this, the telcos baulked at the idea that users would be able to switch to a contract with another company at the tap of a button on their phone.

Re:Too small

[Z00L00K]

The point behind the SIM card is that it shall be easy to change phone without any fuzz. And if the SIM cards has different sizes depending on device it's counteracting that.

Don't underestimate the advantage you can get by having different phones for different situations. A cheap simple rugged phone for outdoor and a flashy smartphone when doing business.

Re:Too small

[AvitarX]

They know different.

At least T-Mobile USA does. When I log into my account there is a picture of my phone, it changes when I move my sim.

Re:Too small

[tlhIngan]

How about a /sim/-folder on the microSD?

Your phone provider could just email the file to you, you copy the file to the card and turn on the phone.

A SIM is not just a storage device. It's a full blown microcomputer with its own encryption engine and other stuff.

Sure you interact with it in a simple command-and-response fashion (usually to get at contacts and such), but the processor can do a LOT more. If you've seen "SIM Applications" on your phone, they are little programs that run on the SIM CPU, interacting with the host phone through a well-defined interface called SIM Toolkit.

Anyhow, if you know how ETSI works, or how most standards bodies work, it's really just a bunch of politics. There's a lot of backscratching and money that changes hands (because being part of the standard means patent licensing revenue). This is especially in cases where there's no patent pool entitiy (like MPEG-LA) that let you mass-license a bunch of patents at once so everyone has to go license the FRAND patents from everyone else.

And that's the problem. Apple, despite probably selling maybe 10% of the phones, makes more profit off the iPhone and the other 90% combined. So everyone else is rightly worried that should this proposal go through they'd have to pay licensing fees to Apple (under FRAND terms).

That's what it really boils down to - it's far more profitable to sue Apple over everything and hope to get forced licensing over Apple's much-desired non-FRAND patents than to let them in and then lose the leverage.

Heck, even in 3G there's a pile of standards that you will not need for a regular phone (TD-CDMA for example). They're used in niche areas with narrow customer base. For stuff like this, it's more about being able to bid on contracts that demand "3G Wireless Technology" with a proprietary technology that no one else uses. It's only standard because it's in the spec that no reasonable person would use.

Can we just forget it?

[jbernardo]

And drop the micro-SIM at the same time? It isn't like the SIM is too big, and having more than one standard means one can't interchange SIMs between phones (or tablets) without adapters. The "extra" size of the normal SIM in comparison with the micro (and now the nano) SIM isn't enough to make an impact on phone size, and the micro-SIMs are easier to lose. Also, the adapters don't work on all phones.

Re:I liked the old fullsize sims better

[BasilBrush]

Probably most people don't realise that full sized SIMs were credit card sized.

Re:Coolness Factor?

[Ixokai]

I doubt its a cost issue; people keep saying on here "Oh, the regular one is small enough to not impact the phone size" and "Oh, the micro-SIM is small enough...." But, that's just missing the point. Its not the phone size Apple wants to change: its that they very much want the iPhone to turn into the Doctor's Blue Box and cram more into it without the size changing.

If you look at the teardown of modern iPhones, you should notice just how densely packed they are-- and /any/ space savings means either more battery (likely), or some place to fit another chip in to provide some sensor or feature. Every little bit counts these days. Look at the teardown: the micro-SIM is to your fingers but it and its supporting space is significant on the scale of the device and its packed electronics.

If they want to add more (more chips, more battery, more anything) they can only a) increase the device's size, b) take something out, or c) shrink something already in. They're trying to do c) and everything is on the table for shrinkage.

When has Apple ever abused FRAND terms?

[Brannon]

they've been on the receiving end of RAND abuse, but I've never heard of them extracting unreasonable tolls/terms on any standards-contributed RAND technology.

Re:When has Apple ever abused FRAND terms?

[marsu_k]

This is simply because they don't have any FRANDable patents, only elementary stuff like round corners and slide-to-unlock (neither of which should have been granted).

Re:Coolness Factor?

[UnknowingFool]

This is also the reason Apple proposed a shorter headphone jack: To save space. Most Slashdot geeks were not impressed with the 4S as it didn't seem to be all that different externally. Internally Apple was able to make a GSM/CDMA phone the same size as their older, separate models. There is a lot of engineering these days to cram in as much in as possible like the new Motorola Droid that is missed if someone is looking at the tech specs only.

Nothing to do with size

[pablo_max]

Apple, like all other GSM/UMTS manufactures pay a licensing fee to companies like ORGA and Nokia to use the SIM cards. I will also point out that from the beginning, Apple did not want to use a SIM card. However, the SIM is a core requirement to using the GSM and UMTS standards. It is additionally required for both PTCRB and GCF certification schemes.
One of the main benefits of the SIM / USIM is portability. The core spec was designed such that you could insert your SIM into any phone and be billed accordingly. It was actually against the rules to have a SIM locked phone back in the old days.

No, Apple doesn't care how big it is, because lets face it, the SIM is not big. Apple is more interested in controlling the standard. Then, suddenly, ORGA, Nokia and even the carriers will need to pay Apple to use the new SIM format.

Keep in mind though, it is not only carriers and phone makers who are effected. There are many smaller companies who have invested millions into the development of test equipment and software to test the current format of SIM.