The nano-SIM standard: manufacturers take sides over the shrinking SIM card
Conflict is brewing in the mobile world over the adoption of a new, smaller standard for the SIM card — the chip in each GSM phone that dictates which network you connect to and your cellphone number. On one side is Apple, which introduced the incumbent Micro SIM in its iPhone 4 and is pushing its own design for the new nano-SIM. Opposing Apple are Motorola, Nokia, and RIM, who believe that their design is technologically superior and less likely to cause damage to a handset since it's harder to improperly insert it.
Apple has said that, should its design be adopted, it will license any related patents to its competitors royalty-free on condition that they reciprocate in kind. However, industry body the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (or ETSI) still has to decide which standard to adopt — follow the whole story right here.
Vodafone stockpiles 500,000 nano-SIMs, hints at imminent iPhone 5 announcement
We've seen plenty of evidence suggesting the iPhone 5 will ditch Micro-SIM cards in favor of the Apple-designed nano-SIM standard, and now Vodafone UK has made that switch a near certainty. Just one day before the latest iOS handset is expected to make its debut, the carrier mistakenly posted a blog article titled "First photos of Vodafone nano-SIM cards." In the post — which was quickly deleted but preserved thanks to Google Cache — Vodafone reveals it presently has a huge stockpile of...
Carriers ordering nano-SIMs ahead of next iPhone launch, FT reports
The Financial Times is reporting today that European mobile carriers are "stockpiling" the recently-approved 4FF nano-SIM card in anticipation of the next iPhone's launch later this year, implying that Apple's next handset will use the updated chip — a piece of plastic that's around 40 percent smaller than the existing 3FF micro-SIM used in the iPhone 4 / 4S and recent models from Nokia, Samsung, HTC, and others. Though it's technically possible for SIM makers to pump out the nano-SIM en...
Apple
Apple wins the nano-SIM fight, says SIM card maker Giesecke & Devrient
The long and contentious battle for the exact shape of the nano-SIM / Fourth Form Factor (4FF) technically came to a close on June 1st. However, the standards body behind the decision, the ETSI, didn't actually announce which of the competing designs had actually won out, preferring to put forth a message of unity after a process that was anything but unified. Whatever the ETSI's intentions, the design firm Giesecke & Devrient came out and told MacWorld that Apple's design is the one that was...
Mobile
Nokia acknowledges nano-SIM decision, now says it's 'prepared' to license essential patents
Nokia had been waging the loudest opposition in recent months to Apple's nano-SIM proposal, a mild evolution of the micro-SIM currently found in the iPhone 4 and 4S (among others). Nokia, jointly with Motorola and RIM, had been proposing a more radical thinking of the SIM card that would be smaller, allow for easy removal with a fingernail, and allegedly met an ETSI guideline that the nano-SIM not be able to get irrecoverably jammed in a micro-SIM slot. Rhetoric became so heated, in fact,...
ETSI names new nano-SIM format, 40 percent smaller than Micro-SIM
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has announced a new nano-SIM format today. Agreed at a meeting held this week in Japan, the new form factor will be 40 percent smaller than the current micro-SIM format — measuring 12.3mm wide by 8.8mm high, and 0.67mm thick. Nano-SIMs will also be packaged in a way that allows them to be backwards compatible with existing SIM card designs.
A number of proposals had been discussed, resulting in conflict between the major mobile...
Mobile
Samsung pens letter detailing 'potentially serious issues and problems' with nano-SIM vote
The long, winding road to selection of a nano-SIM standard took another turn today: Samsung has filed a letter with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) of "concerns expressed and actions taken by Samsung in relation to the recent vote by correspondence for the selection" of a final design.
The phrase "recent vote by correspondence" is of particular interest: just last week, Motorola and RIM had filed a compromise design meant to appease Apple while still allowing...
Mobile
RIM, Motorola told Apple they could find a nano-SIM compromise: here it is
Just hours ago, RIM and Motorola submitted an updated proposal for the design of the so-called 4FF nano-SIM, a smaller replacement for the 3FF micro-SIM used in many phones today (most notably the iPhone 4 and 4S). Debate between competing nano-SIM designs — one from Apple, another from a joint group of RIM, Motorola, and Nokia — has grown intense over the past several months within the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the body ultimately responsible for SIM...
Nano-SIM update: Apple design modified to fix concerns, standard will be decided this month
We just spoke with SIM card maker (and pioneer) Giesecke & Devrient here at CTIA about progress on the creation of the 4FF standard — the so-called nano-SIM — over which Apple and Nokia have been warring in recent months. The company is showcasing Apple's design here at the show, an evolution of the 3FF micro-SIM that iPhone and iPad users have become well acquainted with over the years, though there aren't any prototypes of Nokia's competing design at the booth. When asked if that meant...
Policy & Law
ETSI vote on nano-SIM standard postponed due to dispute between Apple and Nokia
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute is becoming a well-known name these days, following all the back and forth between two camps vying for its approval of a new nano-SIM standard. Alas, like most industry bodies of its size, ETSI has managed to reach an impasse in its decision making today, as reported by French daily Les Echos. The meeting taking place this week won't culminate in a vote, as originally planned, due to fundamental disagreements among the parties involved....
BlackBerry
RIM claims that Apple is trying to cast illicit proxy votes for nano-SIM standard, protests to ETSI
The battle over the future of the SIM card heated up yesterday when Nokia threatened to withhold 'essential' patents if Apple got its way, and RIM is now lashing out at the Cupertino company as well. RIM claims in a letter that it's observed Apple representatives changing their company affiliation, allegedly in order to deviously cast proxy votes at an upcoming ETSI meeting. RIM claims that three supposed Apple employees have registered for Bell Mobility, KT Corp., and SK Telekom, and that...
Nokia won't license 'essential' patents if Apple's nano-SIM standard is selected
The saber rattling continues today ahead of the ETSI's vote on the future of the nano-SIM standard later this week, a vote that has significantly different proposals from Apple and a consortium of Nokia, Motorola, and RIM in the mix. So far, we've heard that Apple would license patents relevant to its proposal royalty-free — a claim which Nokia swiftly bashed, claiming Apple has no relevant patents to license.
Now, Nokia is threatening the ETSI that it will refuse to license patents it...
Apple
Nokia claims Apple has no patents to back up its nano-SIM standard
Nokia has already sounded off on the technical advantages of the nano-SIM standard it's pushing, but now the Finnish phone manufacturer is attacking Apple's competing effort from an intellectual property stance as well. In comments made to IDG, a Nokia spokesman questioned the worth of Apple's proposal due to its lack of reliance on any patents held by the company:
"We are not aware of any Apple Intellectual Property which it considers essential to its nano-SIM proposal. In light of this,...
Mobile
Nano-SIM war: here's what Apple and Nokia want to put in your next phone
Last week, Apple and Nokia got into a very public dust-up over the future of the SIM card — a staple in phones all around the world — thanks to a Financial Times article pointing out that the two had filed competing proposals with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for the so-called "fourth form factor (4FF) UICC," more commonly known as the "nano-SIM." The nano-SIM proposals seek to standardize a new SIM card that would be even smaller than the current micro-SIM...
Apple's nano-SIM standard would be royalty-free if approved by ETSI, claims insider
Apple has reportedly sent a letter to the other members of ETSI (the European Telecommunications Standards Institute) assuring them that, should they ratify its proposed nano-SIM standard, it'll license all necessary Apple patents out to them without asking for royalties. All Apple would want is reciprocity: any patents essential to nano-SIMs held by other companies would have to be licensed in kind.
The document, dated March 19th and apparently authored by a senior Apple lawyer, comes from a...
Mobile
Nokia takes Apple to task over nano-SIM proposal: 'does not meet all of the pre-agreed requirements'
You might recall Financial Times' report that Apple is seeking to get its nano-SIM proposal approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) over a competing proposal from Nokia, Motorola, and RIM — a battle for the very future of the SIM card. For its part, Nokia isn't taking the effort sitting down, and we've gotten a lengthy statement from a company spokesman this morning.
Apple's proposal does not meet all of the pre-agreed requirements for ETSI's planned 4FF...
Mobile
Apple fighting Motorola, Nokia, and RIM over nano-SIM standard
Perhaps to SIM card inventor Giesecke & Devrient's surprise, its nano-SIM proposal introduced late last year didn't fly through standardization unopposed: instead, the process for crafting a next-gen SIM standard has devolved into an all-out war pitting Apple against many of the other major players in the phone industry, FT reports. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is on track to vote on the nano-SIM next week, but there are concerns that Apple's version will require...
Mobile
SIM card pioneer debuts nano-SIM, destined to make swapping phones even harder
Apple's use of the micro-SIM in the iPhone caused a bit of a row in the wireless industry because it fragmented a standard that had been in place for nearly twenty years, making it more difficult for customers to effortlessly switch phones just by swapping SIMs. It's going to take a few more years yet, but the problem is starting to dissipate as more manufacturers — Nokia and Pantech, just to name a couple — hop on board the micro-SIM train.
Just when we thought all would be made right...
