NOW UPDATED: The SIMalliance has not come out against the GSMA on embedded SIMs
A GSMA initiative to come up with remote activation standards for embedded SIMs has been reported in a couple of places as being strongly rebuffed by SIM manufacturers represented by the SIMalliance. But look again.
On Thursday 18 November, the GSMA announced that a group of operators had formed a “task force” to explore the development of an embedded SIM that can be remotely activated. The group is expected to complete the analysis of market requirements by January 2011 and devices featuring the new SIM activation capability are expected to appear in 2012, the GSMA said.
At issue here is the question of how SIMs in a range of devices, from smart meters to cameras and navigation devices, will be activated. Operators can’t pre-provision, all ready for activiation, all the billions of embedded SIMs that could be out there in the near future.
As a totally separate side issue, there have been rumours that Apple is working on a similar, non-removeable, but remotely activated SIM. This was first reported, to my knowledge, on 27 October by GigaOM and picked up by a number of other outlets, keen to run with the “Apple to cut out the operators” angle.
So had the SIMalliance caught wind of this and not in fact the GSMA statement? I think yes. For a start, the SIMalliance released its statement two days before the GSMA released its news. It could have been a pre-emptive strike, perhaps, if the SIM guys had picked up on what the operators were planning. Except that the SIMalliance’s statement said that it was responding to quite different rumours: “we have seen in the Press numerous articles mentioning a new way to distribute smart phones”.
Note that, “a new way to distribute smartphones.” Not “a new way to devise a SIM activation model for M2M and embedded SIMS”.
Yes, the SIMalliance wanted to point out that using a remote download on an embedded SIM would “dramatically change the business model” and it added that “(U)SIM Card removability and accessibility by the end user is mandatory for personal mobile communications usage.”
However, SIMalliance appeared to grasp the fact that when it comes to non-personal comms, ie M2M, then a different model will be required. “In the case of non personal mobile communications, such as Machine to Machine, such requirements could be adapted.”
So I don’t think there is a battle between the groups. It was a strike by the SIM manufacturers against the Apple rumours, first started by GigaOM with a slightly misleading headline and repeated by those who didn’t understand what they were reading.
SIMalliance is remarkably hard to track down as they could kill this GSMA vs the SIM manufacturers stuff at a stroke*(SEE UPDATE), but a GSMA response to Mobile Europe said, “The announcement by the SIMalliance extolled the virtues of the traditional SIM, and we concur with the benefits that the SIMalliance identified in its statement. We do believe that the evolution to the embedded SIM will continue to provide critical capabilities, such as security and portability, for customers, and will enable the delivery of a plethora of new services.”
So there are two issues at stake here. The first is what to do about the billions (the mobile industry hopes) of embedded SIMs that could be in the market over the next few years. The SIMalliance is in fact in broad agreement with the GSMA on this.
The second is the issue of non-removeable SIMs in smartphones – the Apple rumour, shall we call it- as first reported by gigaOm.
*UPDATE: 18.00hrs, Friday 19 November.
Hervé Pierre, SIMalliance General Secretary, has confirmed in person to me that SIMalliance did indeed have the “Apple SIM” reports as its target, and not the GSMA’s later announcement. SIMalliance has no issues with the GSMA’s embedded SIM release and regrets that the two releases were placed, erroneously, in opposition by some parties.