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SIM Cards Must Die

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Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#121

Post by bunderbunder »

jdietrich wrote: post #111

The SIM is an integral part of the GSM standard and provides a huge range of benefits. The point of their existence is to establish the identity of a subscriber independently of a handset , which has a lot of interesting, useful and important side-effects. A very large proportion of GSM subscribers use dual-sim handsets, to take advantage of the cheapest available tariffs. This is the norm in price-sensitive markets…

It also expands consumer choice, if only incrementally.

For example, the US carrier T-Mobile has a whole lot of customers with iPhones despite not offering it themselves. That's possible because consumers are able to pick up a used GSM iPhone and stick their SIM card into it.

That isn't really happening for US Cellular, because Verizon and Sprint's (SIMless) handsets can't readily be made to connect to talk to their network.

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#122

Post by edandersen »

SIM cards are the only thing left protecting consumers from carriers and to a lesser extent Apple. Apple still lock out features (APN settings, tethering) even on SIM-free models of the iPhone when a "recognized" carrier is connected. The only reason they do this is to protect carriers.

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#123

Post by Too »

masklinn wrote: post #53
geon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually from a UX perspective sim cards are a pretty strong solution because there is a clear and simple 1:1 mapping between a physical object and a carrier. That's as simple an UX as can be: if I want to use carrier A I use SIM A, if I want to use carrier B I use SIM B. That must be why it's so common and popular to use physical tokens for the address list too. I really live to sift through the little plastic car…

Your nonalogy makes no sense whatsoever: * Addresses don't significantly impact the phone's behavior (and its costs), current ISP does * As I noted, you might want to get out more, phones don't need to reboot when changing SIM * Considering the number of people who criticize iPhones for not having a µSD slot, physical tokens do indeed seem trendy in crowds which need them

Actually the analogy is good. Having a physical token is very messy from a UX perspective. A menu is just as easy: If i want to use carrier A, i select carrier A in the menu, if i want to use carrier B, i select carrier B in the menu. This is what i do every day with my WiFi-network on my laptop....

Your µSD-comparison is what doesn't make sense. An SD-card can contain several gigabytes of data that would take hours to transfer to the phone. A SIM-card probably has a small key on maybe a few kilobytes that can be transfered and stored by any more or less modern communication-method, wired or not, within a few seconds.

But from a security perspective SIM is a much better solution because once you make the key transferable by software it will be much easier to steal an identity.

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#124

Post by jlindenbaum »

PanMan wrote: post #4

I'm afraid if we kill SIM cards, the opposite will happen: your phone will be locked to one network, and switching networks means switching hardware (beyond just the sim). I really like that while traveling I can just buy a local sim, put it in my own phone, and use it. That would only work in these wireframes if all operators would agree to support this. Which I think they won't.

This assumes you have a phone that isn't already SIM-locked, like most of them are when purchased from carriers.

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#125

Post by drdaeman »

MehdiEG wrote: post #88

IMHO the original posts and many of the comments are mixing up very different and somewhat unrelated issues. Issue #1 The SIM card, as a piece of plastic used to identify your phone number and mobile operator, is indeed pre-historic technology. It's quite unbelievable that we're still using such a system in 2012. Unless I'm missing something, what a SIM card does could easily be done in software and this is part of w…

> The SIM card, as a piece of plastic used to identify your phone number and mobile operator, is indeed pre-historic technology.

I highly doubt so. SIM cards are hardware tokens, which securely hold cryptographic keys — are those things obsolete or pre-historic?

They're holding a shared encryption key (so-called Ki) but never reveal it directly. This is the point of SIM cards.

SIM cards could (and, I believe, were) implemented in software, but such implementations reduce security, usability or both.

(Yes, nowadays, I believe, almost no operator would tell you what Ki is recorded on your SIM card, so you won't be able to clone the card. But that's a completely another issue.)

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#126

Post by ianloic »

jdietrich wrote: post #111

The SIM is an integral part of the GSM standard and provides a huge range of benefits. The point of their existence is to establish the identity of a subscriber independently of a handset , which has a lot of interesting, useful and important side-effects. A very large proportion of GSM subscribers use dual-sim handsets, to take advantage of the cheapest available tariffs. This is the norm in price-sensitive markets…

The problem here is that Americans haven't ever experienced a competitive mobile telephony market where all carriers use the same network technology and switching networks is trivial. That's probably why our coverage is terrible and we pay 3-5 times more than people in other countries.

(North) American telco misregulation is a disaster.

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#127

Post by kamjam »

CraigRood wrote: post #120
kamjam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, they give you a new sim on upgrade? I can understand this if you are upgrading TO an iPhone since you need a micro SIM, but rather pointless otherwise. I think I've had the same SIM card for about 6-7 years now!

Older sims dont have 3G capabilities either. (Not sure why)

Mine is defo new enough that it supports that! Anyone know if you need a new sim card to support 4G services?

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#128

Post by kamjam »

Too wrote: post #116
Spearchucker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the general sentiment. The down side is something I'm waiting (hoping) for someone to fix. If I get a text message on one phone I can't get to it when I put the SIM into my other phone. It'd be awesome if there was an operator-netural, handset-neutral, multi-platform and secure cloud-based SMS sync service.

Actually most older phones (first generation gsm-phones) stored sms (and contact-list) directly on the sim-card. Swapping the sim into another phone and you would have everything accessible. Some phones had their own memory also so you could choose where to store it or it would revert to SIM when phone memory was out. Problem was that the memory on the SIM was incredibly slow and small and had no support for advanced…

Yes, my Nokia 8850 had no internal storage and therefore i could only hold 10 messages on the SIM. The later SIM's had more memory and could store 20 messages!

Seems strange having a phone that even stores them individually and doesn't group my contact these days!

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#129

Post by jerrya »

CraigRood wrote: post #120
kamjam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, they give you a new sim on upgrade? I can understand this if you are upgrading TO an iPhone since you need a micro SIM, but rather pointless otherwise. I think I've had the same SIM card for about 6-7 years now!

Older sims dont have 3G capabilities either. (Not sure why)

This is something weird that I've discovered too.

I am now on T-Mobile (from AT&T) and there are all sorts of T-Mobile features that may or may not work depending on what SIM card you have in your phone. And if they don't work you have to get a new SIM card (that is not guaranteed not to disable other features.)

What!? That seems to be the weirdest thing ever. What is going on?

Re: SIM Cards Must Die

#130

Post by bigiain »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #110
Spearchucker wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the general sentiment. The down side is something I'm waiting (hoping) for someone to fix. If I get a text message on one phone I can't get to it when I put the SIM into my other phone. It'd be awesome if there was an operator-netural, handset-neutral, multi-platform and secure cloud-based SMS sync service.

Google Voice.

Yeah, if it worked outside the US I'd be on it in a flash. I suspect Twilio will have local-to-me-in-Australia endpoints before Google Voice does, so a hand-rolled Twilio solution is probably in my future.
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