When talking about iSIM there are two possible perspectives, which mainly depend on the age of the people. And it is that for some, the youngest, it is a more than interesting novelty, while for others, those of us who already comb gray hair, it takes us back to the times of analog mobile telephony, in which SIM cards did not yet exist and when contract the service and receive the terminal, it already had its mobile line assigned and configured.
After the arrival of digital mobile telephony and, with it, SIM cards, we began to see how the size of telephones was shrinking, to the point that the size of the original SIMs, similar to that of a credit card, started to become a problem, and that’s how full-size SIM cards but with dies around the chip (the size of which hasn’t changed in decades) came about, leading us to the current ecosystem, where nanoSIM has become the prevailing format.
With the arrival of eSIM, some years ago, we began to see the disappearance of the physical SIM card, which is thus virtualized. However, its level of implementation is limited, and although Apple has made a strong commitment to this format, its presence in the market has not yet become widespread. And it is that for not a few manufacturers, eSIM is not the definitive step to virtualize the SIM card, which is why they have been working on iSIM for some time. Specifically, we are talking about Qualcomm, Samsung Thales and Vodafone, according to information from the former.
And what is the main difference between eSIM and iSIM? Well, with this new proposal, SIM card virtualization is brought directly to the SoC, which according to its promoters, provides multiple performance and compatibility advantages, in addition to substantially increasing its storage capacity and, to prove it, the technology companies involved in this iSIM development have already carried out a first proof of concept.
For this test, each partner has contributed their share of knowledge. First of all, Qualcomm has provided its Snapdragon 888 SoC with the necessary modifications to support iSIM. Samsung, for its part, has provided its Galaxy Z Flip3 with the SoC made for the test by Qualcomm. The French group Thales has developed the implementation of iSIM based on eSIM, and Vodafone has added its experience in networks.
the system iSIM is fully compliant with the standards set by the GSMA, a key factor to make its adoption easier, since no changes are necessary in the existing cellular network infrastructure. But the most interesting thing is that, if extended, it can bring cellular connectivity to many devices that, by their nature, are not compatible with SIM or eSIM.
Is the future of the SIM card to disappear? It’s still too early to say definitively, but It seems more and more clear that this will indeed be the case.. Now it will depend, of course, on whether the industry decides to adopt iSIM or any other virtual card format that may arise in the future.
