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Nano-SIM Decision Delayed
judgecorp writes "The decision on the next generation of even-smaller SIM cards for phones and other devices has been delayed by standards body ETSI, and the issue (which should have been settled this week) is nowhere near resolution. Apple wants to trim the existing micro-SIM further, Nokia wants to move to something like a micro-SD card which may involve patents. Meanwhile RIM has complained about Apple's approach."
My guess is the amount of space they take up in the phone is the problem. Basically, between the SIM itself and the hardware for reading it, that's a good amount of real estate.
ART on dA
I'm struggling to handle these things with my fat fingers already. And devices are getting so small that you have to wonder whether, if we want any foorm of interaction, we are on the edge of small enough. Now capacity and power, pile it on.
I'd honestly prefer not to have a SIM and do some form of activation either OTA (over the air) or tethered. I do see the benefit of a card that can be swapped for obvious reasons such as going to a water park (where you take the ultra cheap, who cares if it dies phone), or travelling to a different country where you might buy a prepaid SIM on a local carrier. However we should be able to solve that OTA in some fashion. Perhaps the phones come up with the ability to connect to a clearing house for personalization similar to how they come up able to make emergency services calls? Enter your credentials and they get hashed and sent to the service which then presents back your options "activate device on existing plan, disabling existing phone", "purchase a travel pre-paid account", etc. Why must we have physical cards to prove identity?
Yeah, fuck Apple! They're trying to get a royalty-free standard for a tiny SIM card established! How dare they!
Tme for all the hypocrites to come out against apple who is offering a free, perpetual license for the relevant patents, in favor of those who won't do the same, only because they have an irrational hatred of apple. Just look at the first post.
The are offering a 'free' license only to anyone who licenses their patents under the same conditions. That's not really 'free' that's 'Apple is tired of getting charged license fees by people who've been doing phone R&D rather longer than they have'...
The SIM isn't just a memory card. It also has onboard processing. Not much, but just enough to perform a handshake: The network actually authenticates the SIM itsself, with the phone just acting as a network interface and power supply. That way it is practically impossible to clone a SIM (There are ways, but they are far beyond the abilities of even most specialists in the field). As for why they are used, it's a regulatory thing intended to decouple the network operators from control of the devices, which could be seen as a conflict of interest or as a way to prevent customers from moving to a new operator (If they couldn't just move the SIM, they'd have to buy a completly new device).
Except that Apple didn't do anything except trim down the current version of the SIM card leaving only the metal contacts. There's nothing in the proposal by Apple that Apple actually created. They are essentially saying "I'll license 'trimming a normal SIM down to size with a razor blade' for free! All we ask is that you offer the same deal if your proposal is adopted."
It's... weird.
Of course it's "royalty free." There's nothing about it which is worthy of collecting any royalties.
I'm not saying that it isn't just a trimming of the normal SIM, but Christ, they probably could try to get royalties on it some way if they wanted to, which is sad, but that's the state of the business. Even if it is just a trimming, well, it's a smaller SIM, which means more room in smartphones for battery or other goodies. Sounds good to me.
The are offering a 'free' license only to anyone who licenses their patents under the same conditions. That's not really 'free' that's 'Apple is tired of getting charged license fees by people who've been doing phone R&D rather longer than they have'...
Not really, they are offering the design for 'free' to the standards committee so long as all others with possible patents covering the design do the same. If they get their way, anybody who wants to utilize a the new standard would be free of licensing costs. In no way is Apple trying to get a free ride, they want the ride to be free for everyone.
Do you have any idea how irrelevant that amount of space is? The standard Mini-SIM is 25x15mm. It's tiny. The Micro-SIM is 15x12mm. It's about as small as it can be without getting lost instantly when you remove it from the phone. The Nano-SIM is 12x9mm. Your phone would save 6x12x0.76mm. A typical smartphone has far more wasted space than that in various places. For applications where that much space actually is important, there is the embedded SIM, which is only 5x6mm.
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The space trade-off isn't significant.
Tiny SIM's do punish people who use multiple SIM's, common in the third-world. If you're going to trim down the SIM, you'd better use that space to add extra spots for SIM cards!
Required reading for internet skeptics
My guess is the amount of space they take up in the phone is the problem. Basically, between the SIM itself and the hardware for reading it, that's a good amount of real estate.
Exactly.
But the problem is the insane rush to thinness. Devices are already too thin, and making them thinner just makes them harder to use, hold, and keep rigid enough to prevent glass breakage.
The problem is that current battery technology wants to be in regular shapes, and in order to allow for a sim socket you have to surrender the entire width of the phone even though the sim only takes a portion of that width. I suspect Apple would like to insert the sim in a slot that sits perpendicular to the slab. These nano-sims are also thinner.
Molded batteries would allow the use of irregular areas inside of a device, and such batteries could better use empty space.
Linear sims (toothpick) are another possible design. The phone need only read them upon insertion via a collar around the insertion hole. Nobody bothers to write to the sim any more.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
true, but it does make it so any FRAND licensing from the IP holders for current SIM tech becomes worthless.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/03/apples-us-patent-application-61481114.html
As long as Nokia adheres to FRAND licensing obligations, the Finnish company's position that it wants to cash in on its SIM card-related patents is just as legitimate, from a shareholder value point of view, as Apple's proposal that everyone adopt a royalty-free standard. But Nokia's desire to monetize standard-essential patents is not in the public interest unless its proposal offers major advantages that offset the cost of licensing and the higher transaction cost (which in connection with FRAND patents sometimes involves litigation as I see all the time now).
Nokia could really use the money. no wonder they're fighting against it.. even pomoting their own "standard" which I'm sure they have no intentions of giving away. RIM is also against the nano-SIM - wonder why.. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-29/rim-earnings-sales-fall-short-as-blackberry-demand-wanes.html