Open Radar

 
Summary:

In the press we read about the new nano sim card proposal to ETSI. Nokia is not happy about Apple's proposal.
Well somehow I do not care about Nokia but I do care about the end user. And End User say: Please not another format.

The reasons are simple: Interoperability.

I own a GSM mobile phone since 1992. It used the same SIM card since then. It always worked even though I have swapped my phone like 100 times with newer models, my subscription has been happily living of my SIM card. When I changed operator, I got a new SIM card and stuck it in whatever Phone I had. It smiply worked. No question asked. When I travel abroad and wanted to use a prepaid card, it simply worked. When I wanted to access the internet using a 3G USB stick, I simply stuck the card into it and it worked.

Those days did go away when apple came with the micro SIM card. Now it was no longer possible to use a prepaid SIM card when traveling abroad without carrying a SIM card cutter with you as 90% of the vendors did not have micro SIM's. Similar is true for if you want to use your SIM in another phone who had a mini SIM card slot instead of a Micro SIM card slot. So a lot of adapters and cutters had to be used which is ruining the experience a lot.

Now it might be that the microSIM is nicer as a bit smaller than the miniSIM. But why you want to go even smaller using a nanoSIM? It becomes very unpractical by human fingers. It becomes very unpractical to swap SIM cards often. And yes, I have a case where this is a must. I have a phone built into my car. When I drive long distances, I take the SIM out of my phone and put it into the car's phone.


Frankly, going with 5 SIM card formats is too much asked. If I look back in time

1, the credit card size SIM card format dissappeared from the market quickly because of everybody using the mini SIM card and interoperability is king.

2. the small card size SIM card never appeared on the market

3. The mini SIM card is what everybody used for years

4. The micro SIM card is only used by Apple so far and nobody else. This was  upsetting a lot of users who couldn't choose their device freely anymore because once they used a micro SIM they couldn't go back to something else without going to the operator and getting a replacement SIM card and pay 50$ for it (40 CHF in Switzerland is 50$)

5. The nano SIM card is not easy to handle as an end user as becoming so small, totally useless invention in the eyes of a consumer.

As a end user, I would have to say, if you come up with another SIM card which half of the operator's don't yet support and no other device accepts, I would not purchase your new device because its too much hassle.