Apple pseudo-SIM card would allow easier iPhone switches
A strong new rumor says that Apple has developed a new internal SIM card that would replace physical SIM cards in the iPhone, allowing users to select or switch carriers at home and on line.
Think of Apple’s new pseudo-SIM card as a SIM card on a chip. But first, what is a SIM card, really? A SIM (subscriber identity module) on a removable SIM card securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) used to identify a subscriber on cell phones. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone or broadband telephony device, or to use a device on a different carrier’s network by obtaining and installing the physical SIM card from a carrier and inserting it into the handset.
What Apple is proposing to do in do away with the physical SIM card and replace it with electronic internal memory. This would allow a user to easily change carriers without even visiting the new carrier’s store. Instead, the handset owner could connect the phone to his or her computer and connect to either iTunes or a carrier program to rewrite the information on the pseudo-SIM, thus changing carriers instantly and from home. The same thing could also be accomplished by calling the carrier using the handset. Obviously, such a situation would allow Apple to sell iPhone handsets directly to users without the involvement of carriers, and allow the user to deal directly with carriers without the involvement of Apple.
The system would be particularly useful in Europe according to a CNN article, where traveling from country to country can also move you out of your carrier’s coverage zone, requiring you to change carriers more or less on the fly. With the writable pseudo-SIM card, all that would be required is a simple call to the new carrier and a few second’s time. The writable system could also be used to select between CDMA and LTE systems, as an example, with the same or a different carrier.
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