Right, the way it currently works, if you buy an unlocked phone, or get it unlocked, you can then swap SIM cards. The point is, we have no idea at this point in time if embedded SIM cards would work the same way, or if it would effectively mean the end of unlocked phones, or, assuming that doesn't happen, how easy or onerous the process of swapping SIM info might be. Until there are hard details on how it would work, and how it would be implemented, there's no way to know that embedded SIMS will be a positive thing for the consumer.
So, yes, people would prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't.
What countries offer unlocked iPhones? Why do they offer unlocked iPhones? Either Apple is required to by law or it behooves them because that country’s market works that way. Either way, this doesn’t change any of that. All this does is remove a very large piece of mostly unused plastic that holds very little data that could easily be placed in storage that is already on the baseband chip and hold SIM data from every carrier in the world.
That's some new TSA program you're referring to, right?
Your argument is penny-wise and dollar-stupid.
Why would I care if there is a slight possibility that my cell phone bills may be a little higher --- if I can get my electricity cheaper (because they don't have to pay a bunch of people walking down the streets every day to read the meters), if I can get my food cheaper (because it may be cheap enough for even the small local supermarket chain to have fleet management of their trucks with these M2M wireless devices)...
A million things will get cheaper and you care about how your phone bill may be a little bit higher. And your argument is supposedly "pro-consumer".
Will they get cheaper, or will business profits get larger?
Both.
Of course, we are talking in an apple forum in which whatever good happens to Apple the stock price automatically translates to the betterment of mankind. Whatever good happens to Apple the for-profit company doesn't necessarily mean good things to consumers.
What I am talking about is that the whole economy is going to benefit.
So where are all the usual European suspects who come in and post how they can change SIM cards whenever they want and pay 2? for billions of GB of data for tethering to their laptops at phenomenal speeds everywhere they go and unlimited calls because Europe is oh, so much better than America and networks there allow freedom to do what you want backed up by the EU.
HERE! The main point being, having interchangeable SIMs does increase competition, thus lowering price (just compare U.S to Asia or Europe). Add number portability to that and unlocked phones, you're set.
- Interchangeable SIMs = phone independence (as long as you buy one of the hundreds of unlocked phones out there)
- Number portability = Operator independence (your phone number doesn't change and your phone book moves as well since you can reuse your old SIM).
And yes, I kind of like the mandatory number portability and the mandatory caps on Euro-wide roaming charges. What's wrong with that? Oh, the fact that it was MANDATED by an authority? My benefit is lowered prices and improved services and more convenience and flexibility via legislation. I'll take that anyday.
Apple's model only makes it more difficult to change phones when one wants to. That naturally is their goal. Not operator independence. That already exists. Of course Apple will market it with the full reality distortion field on so that people who believe blindly in Apple gospel think they've been saved (again). Apple has many brilliant ideas and tech, this is not one of them.
HERE! The main point being, having interchangeable SIMs does increase competition…
Compared to a virtual SIM setup, it doesn’t affect competition. If the phone is locked, it’s locked, and you still can’t switch SIM between carriers and countries until it’s unlocked.
To me, their idea sounds like something they?d submit to ISO, IEC, ETSI, etc. Something they?d make free since adoption doesn?t look to harm their bottom line and could help it by giving them more freedom in their designs. Something akin to mini-DisplayPort.
Yep. GEMALTO (the other culprit in this scheme) is working with Apple on their own solution, but the GSM Association is working on a similar tech backed by at least AT&T and Deutche Telekom http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/mob...e_overview.htm. Their goal is to have cars, fridges etc. be provisioned easily into the networks.
Compared to a virtual SIM setup, it doesn?t affect competition. If the phone is locked, it?s locked, and you still can?t switch SIM between carriers and countries until it?s unlocked.
But the point there was. Interchangeable SIMs means: interchangeable phones. It enables increased competition on the device side as well. Also allows me to use a device in another network, where my device doesn't work (for example incompatible frequencies). Quite common that.
This is just speculation, but why even require the vending machine? i.e. You arrive in a foreign airport at 1am, your embedded sim sees from the surrounding networks that you're in another country, and connects to one with restricted data access allowing you to sign up to and select a contract from the local carriers on the device. You get back home and get prompted to switch back to your original line. Sounds pretty convenient to me.
Except if none of the operators in said country have implemented Apple's proprietary SIM registration feature. You see, the SIM has one thing going for it. It is utterly standardised.
Apple's idea locks you into Apple. That's the bad thing about it. From an operator lock, to a vendor lock. Or worst case: vendor + operator lock. At least the SIM allows me to change vendor if I wish. And operator if I had the foresight of buying an unlocked device (yes I do intensive international travel so an unlocked device is VERY convenient).
I think most of you are missing the point. What exactly are you ?swapping? when you swap the card? The data! That?s it. The physical card is just a method by which to accomplish this task, but as pointed out many times in this thread there are plenty of ways to move codes and data between devices. Most of the ways I have conceived would be faster and easier than physically swapping a SIM card.
Yes they would if they were standard. But how do you for example use a standard bluetooth connection to send fairly standard contact data from an iPhone to another vendors device that is not in the Apple MFI program? Or a photo? These are things that can be done between non-Apple vendors.
Since these two simple tasks are not doable today clearly because Apple doesn't want it to be, why would you assume Apple would allow the SIM info to be moved? I have my doubts unless Apple states that they will use a open standard that is compatible with other vendors. It is interesting to see how this develops though.
edit: The only encryption I see is when talking to the carrier. It looks like the total size might be 20 digits. You could input that by hand or NFC or BT could do it from a secure setting option within the phone, while being able to store dozens and dozens of virtual-SIM entries.
Well the main problem is the Authentication key (Ki). This information is stored in a non-readable part of the SIM (or USIM for 3G) and the HLR. This is NEVER transmitted outside the SIM card. This is also used for authenticating the user and calculating the ciphering keys. All of this calculation occurs on the SIM card itself.
To copy the card contents, you'd have to change the whole premise of GSM and 3G security (the SIM is a virtual safe).
The operator maps the IMSI of the subscriber to the subscription and thus the actual phone number. So if you lose your SIM, the operator assigns you a new IMSI (and SIM-card). The IMSI is your true phone number and identity in the network. The dialed phone number is just mapped to this IMSI code at the operator's HLR.
If you can make an automated system to change this mapping at the operator's HLR immediately on user request, then an embedded SIM system would work without changing the security basis of GSM and WCDMA
You have any evidence for this? It's a crazy assertion. The idea is very simple. Just like you change WiFi networks with your software, in the same way you would change Carriers with an embedded SIM through your software. No freedom is taken away, rather a bunch more is given to you.
I subscribe with 3HK. My friend uses PCCW. I want to send my friend a photo. Right now I can take out my 3HK SIM, put in a HK$50 (US$6) PCCW stored value SIM, send a free MMS to my friend, take out the PCCW SIM, put in the 3 SIM and go back to my day. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
But the point there was. Interchangeable SIMs means: interchangeable phones. It enables increased competition on the device side as well. Also allows me to use a device in another network, where my device doesn't work (for example incompatible frequencies). Quite common that.
Regs, Jarkko
The only way to increase competition is --- to increase the number of carriers.
Simlocking laws don't work, outlawing exclusivity doesn't work, and giving away 3G licenses on the cheap doesn't work.
UK has pretty much the cheapest iphone plans in industrialized Europe --- this is a country that allows simlocking, allows iphone exclusivity and had the most expensive 3G auction on the planet.
2. Pay later? You might be out of the country in a day or an hour. You pay as you go for anything but your primary carrier (ie: AT&T US). Apple will eventually handle all of these payments for you. All you will see are simple fields in Settings.
3. How well is that working out for you now if you have an iPhone? The days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out.
1. Thought so. What if I don't want to give my name, credit card number, expiry date, security code, and home address to yet another phone company? And isn't this a hell of a lot more work than going into 7-11 and giving them a few dollars for a SIM? Again, they are taking away my freedom to do that.
2. So you have to pay first, i.e. give them your life story and credit history. Yeah... that's not infringing on my privacy at all... And while travelling? So if I travel to say... PRC, where there is more corruption and white collar crime than pretty much anywhere in the world, I'm supposed to give someone I have no trust in my credit card number, home address... so on and so forth?
3. It's working great. I have a credit card, actually, but even if I didn't, I could buy an unlocked iPhone in HK for cash, buy a stored value SIM in Hong Kong for cash or even subscribe to a monthly plan with ID and proof of address (no credit card needed) and pop the SIM into my cash-paid iPhone. Just because you don't have the freedom to do so in the US doesn't mean, "the days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out." The fact is they don't have to be and we shouldn't let them.
Embedded SIM is a bad idea.
Here's another scenario:
My friend's phone runs out of battery. He needs to make an urgent call. I pop out my SIM and he pops his in, and makes his call on his dollar. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
1. Thought so. What if I don't want to give my name, credit card number, expiry date, security code, and home address to yet another phone company? And isn't this a hell of a lot more work than going into 7-11 and giving them a few dollars for a SIM? Again, they are taking away my freedom to do that.
2. So you have to pay first, i.e. give them your life story and credit history. Yeah... that's not infringing on my privacy at all... And while travelling? So if I travel to say... PRC, where there is more corruption and white collar crime than pretty much anywhere in the world, I'm supposed to give someone I have no trust in my credit card number, home address... so on and so forth?
3. It's working great. I have a credit card, actually, but even if I didn't, I could buy an unlocked iPhone in HK for cash, buy a stored value SIM in Hong Kong for cash or even subscribe to a monthly plan with ID and proof of address (no credit card needed) and pop the SIM into my cash-paid iPhone. Just because you don't have the freedom to do so in the US doesn't mean, "the days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out." The fact is they don't have to be and we shouldn't let them.
Embedded SIM is a bad idea.
Here's another scenario:
My friend's phone runs out of battery. He needs to make an urgent call. I pop out my SIM and he pops his in, and makes his call on his dollar. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
Plenty of countries require SIM card registrations. So you can't just buy a prepaid SIM card without giving them information as well.
Hong Kong has 6 carriers --- most of them owned by local billionaires who are willing to lose money to buy market share. This is why it had been the iphone paradise since day 1 (even though it had an iphone exclusive carrier). NOTHING is going to change the fact that the level of competition is determined by the number of carriers. It didn't matter that Hong Kong also had a fixture of network technology (they had a cdma network). It didn't matter that local laws allow simlocking.
If your phone is a simlocked phone and your friend has another carrier --- then your friend can't make the phone call either. Besides, if I need to make an urgent call and you as my friend try to nickel/dime me for that call --- you are no longer my friend.
Except if none of the operators in said country have implemented Apple's proprietary SIM registration feature. You see, the SIM has one thing going for it. It is utterly standardised.
Apple's idea locks you into Apple. That's the bad thing about it. From an operator lock, to a vendor lock. Or worst case: vendor + operator lock. At least the SIM allows me to change vendor if I wish. And operator if I had the foresight of buying an unlocked device (yes I do intensive international travel so an unlocked device is VERY convenient).
Regs, Jarkko
Divide and conquer! If only one carrier signs up, they "win" all the iPhone contracts coming into the country. That's a big incentive for any carrier to sign up, but also for remaining carriers to go in so that their competitors don't get all of that pie!
In any case as noted elsewhere in the thread, it looks like the GSMA is working on making this a standard. It will be interesting to see where the control lies with the eventual proposed standard (carrier, vendor, or god forbid, the customer!), and one would hope that Apple is working with them on this rather than investing in a proprietary system.
If your phone is a simlocked phone and your friend has another carrier --- then your friend can't make the phone call either. Besides, if I need to make an urgent call and you as my friend try to nickel/dime me for that call --- you are no longer my friend.
We're talking about unlocked phones here. Period. Your first point is irrelevant in this context.
So your friend who wants to borrow your phone to make an urgent call just checks his phone for the numbe... oh, wait.
Hong Kong has 6 carriers --- most of them owned by local billionaires who are willing to lose money to buy market share.
So all those carriers are losing money...
No, they are actually more profitable than any of the US carriers. NO LOCKING is the way to go. Embedded SIMS take locking and move it to another level. Double-lock. Locked into one carrier AND locked into one handset, instead of just being locked into one carrier. Greeeat!
Divide and conquer! If only one carrier signs up, they "win" all the iPhone contracts coming into the country. That's a big incentive for any carrier to sign up, but also for remaining carriers to go in so that their competitors don't get all of that pie!
In any case as noted elsewhere in the thread, it looks like the GSMA is working on making this a standard. It will be interesting to see where the control lies with the eventual proposed standard (carrier, vendor, or god forbid, the customer!), and one would hope that Apple is working with them on this rather than investing in a proprietary system.
Operators wanting iphone inbound roamers is directly proportional to apple marketshare. Consider that of all the subs in a network, only a few percent are incoming roamers. Now take apple's phone (not smartphone) marketshare and you start to see how much an operator would lose by not taking the apple tech in roaming cases. I'd say that the value is very low.
For home subs the story might be different, but operators are quite reluctant to adopt a single vendor's proprietary tech at a largr scale.
Well aware of GSM Assocs plans. There are at least two points to consider in that case.
1) GSM Assoc is not a standardisation body. It is a recommended practice body.
2) GSM association version is more likely to become an adopted standard than Apple+gemalto version. Unless they both become one and the same, I see Apple adopting a proprietary SIM tech as a bad thing for the consumer. It would also mean that there will be plenty of operators that will not have the tech. So it narrows consumer choice.
Comments
Right, the way it currently works, if you buy an unlocked phone, or get it unlocked, you can then swap SIM cards. The point is, we have no idea at this point in time if embedded SIM cards would work the same way, or if it would effectively mean the end of unlocked phones, or, assuming that doesn't happen, how easy or onerous the process of swapping SIM info might be. Until there are hard details on how it would work, and how it would be implemented, there's no way to know that embedded SIMS will be a positive thing for the consumer.
So, yes, people would prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't.
What countries offer unlocked iPhones? Why do they offer unlocked iPhones? Either Apple is required to by law or it behooves them because that country’s market works that way. Either way, this doesn’t change any of that. All this does is remove a very large piece of mostly unused plastic that holds very little data that could easily be placed in storage that is already on the baseband chip and hold SIM data from every carrier in the world.
That's some new TSA program you're referring to, right?
Your argument is penny-wise and dollar-stupid.
Why would I care if there is a slight possibility that my cell phone bills may be a little higher --- if I can get my electricity cheaper (because they don't have to pay a bunch of people walking down the streets every day to read the meters), if I can get my food cheaper (because it may be cheap enough for even the small local supermarket chain to have fleet management of their trucks with these M2M wireless devices)...
A million things will get cheaper and you care about how your phone bill may be a little bit higher. And your argument is supposedly "pro-consumer".
What countries offer unlocked iPhones?
http://store.apple.com/au/browse/hom...mco=OTY2ODA2OQ
http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/hom...co=MTgxNTgzMzY
A million things will get cheaper and you care about how your phone bill may be a little bit higher. And your argument is supposedly "pro-consumer".
Will they get cheaper, or will business profits get larger?
Will they get cheaper, or will business profits get larger?
Both.
Of course, we are talking in an apple forum in which whatever good happens to Apple the stock price automatically translates to the betterment of mankind. Whatever good happens to Apple the for-profit company doesn't necessarily mean good things to consumers.
What I am talking about is that the whole economy is going to benefit.
So where are all the usual European suspects who come in and post how they can change SIM cards whenever they want and pay 2? for billions of GB of data for tethering to their laptops at phenomenal speeds everywhere they go and unlimited calls because Europe is oh, so much better than America and networks there allow freedom to do what you want backed up by the EU.
HERE! The main point being, having interchangeable SIMs does increase competition, thus lowering price (just compare U.S to Asia or Europe). Add number portability to that and unlocked phones, you're set.
- Interchangeable SIMs = phone independence (as long as you buy one of the hundreds of unlocked phones out there)
- Number portability = Operator independence (your phone number doesn't change and your phone book moves as well since you can reuse your old SIM).
And yes, I kind of like the mandatory number portability and the mandatory caps on Euro-wide roaming charges. What's wrong with that? Oh, the fact that it was MANDATED by an authority? My benefit is lowered prices and improved services and more convenience and flexibility via legislation. I'll take that anyday.
Apple's model only makes it more difficult to change phones when one wants to. That naturally is their goal. Not operator independence. That already exists. Of course Apple will market it with the full reality distortion field on so that people who believe blindly in Apple gospel think they've been saved (again). Apple has many brilliant ideas and tech, this is not one of them.
Regs, Jarkko
HERE! The main point being, having interchangeable SIMs does increase competition…
Compared to a virtual SIM setup, it doesn’t affect competition. If the phone is locked, it’s locked, and you still can’t switch SIM between carriers and countries until it’s unlocked.
To me, their idea sounds like something they?d submit to ISO, IEC, ETSI, etc. Something they?d make free since adoption doesn?t look to harm their bottom line and could help it by giving them more freedom in their designs. Something akin to mini-DisplayPort.
Yep. GEMALTO (the other culprit in this scheme) is working with Apple on their own solution, but the GSM Association is working on a similar tech backed by at least AT&T and Deutche Telekom http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/mob...e_overview.htm. Their goal is to have cars, fridges etc. be provisioned easily into the networks.
Regs, Jarkko
Compared to a virtual SIM setup, it doesn?t affect competition. If the phone is locked, it?s locked, and you still can?t switch SIM between carriers and countries until it?s unlocked.
But the point there was. Interchangeable SIMs means: interchangeable phones.
Regs, Jarkko
This is just speculation, but why even require the vending machine? i.e. You arrive in a foreign airport at 1am, your embedded sim sees from the surrounding networks that you're in another country, and connects to one with restricted data access allowing you to sign up to and select a contract from the local carriers on the device. You get back home and get prompted to switch back to your original line. Sounds pretty convenient to me.
Except if none of the operators in said country have implemented Apple's proprietary SIM registration feature. You see, the SIM has one thing going for it. It is utterly standardised.
Apple's idea locks you into Apple. That's the bad thing about it. From an operator lock, to a vendor lock. Or worst case: vendor + operator lock. At least the SIM allows me to change vendor if I wish. And operator if I had the foresight of buying an unlocked device (yes I do intensive international travel so an unlocked device is VERY convenient).
Regs, Jarkko
I think most of you are missing the point. What exactly are you ?swapping? when you swap the card? The data! That?s it. The physical card is just a method by which to accomplish this task, but as pointed out many times in this thread there are plenty of ways to move codes and data between devices. Most of the ways I have conceived would be faster and easier than physically swapping a SIM card.
Yes they would if they were standard. But how do you for example use a standard bluetooth connection to send fairly standard contact data from an iPhone to another vendors device that is not in the Apple MFI program? Or a photo? These are things that can be done between non-Apple vendors.
Since these two simple tasks are not doable today clearly because Apple doesn't want it to be, why would you assume Apple would allow the SIM info to be moved? I have my doubts unless Apple states that they will use a open standard that is compatible with other vendors. It is interesting to see how this develops though.
Regs, Jarkko
edit: The only encryption I see is when talking to the carrier. It looks like the total size might be 20 digits. You could input that by hand or NFC or BT could do it from a secure setting option within the phone, while being able to store dozens and dozens of virtual-SIM entries.
Well the main problem is the Authentication key (Ki). This information is stored in a non-readable part of the SIM (or USIM for 3G) and the HLR. This is NEVER transmitted outside the SIM card. This is also used for authenticating the user and calculating the ciphering keys. All of this calculation occurs on the SIM card itself.
To copy the card contents, you'd have to change the whole premise of GSM and 3G security (the SIM is a virtual safe).
The operator maps the IMSI of the subscriber to the subscription and thus the actual phone number. So if you lose your SIM, the operator assigns you a new IMSI (and SIM-card). The IMSI is your true phone number and identity in the network. The dialed phone number is just mapped to this IMSI code at the operator's HLR.
If you can make an automated system to change this mapping at the operator's HLR immediately on user request, then an embedded SIM system would work without changing the security basis of GSM and WCDMA
Regs, Jarkko
You have any evidence for this? It's a crazy assertion. The idea is very simple. Just like you change WiFi networks with your software, in the same way you would change Carriers with an embedded SIM through your software. No freedom is taken away, rather a bunch more is given to you.
I subscribe with 3HK. My friend uses PCCW. I want to send my friend a photo. Right now I can take out my 3HK SIM, put in a HK$50 (US$6) PCCW stored value SIM, send a free MMS to my friend, take out the PCCW SIM, put in the 3 SIM and go back to my day. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
But the point there was. Interchangeable SIMs means: interchangeable phones.
Regs, Jarkko
The only way to increase competition is --- to increase the number of carriers.
Simlocking laws don't work, outlawing exclusivity doesn't work, and giving away 3G licenses on the cheap doesn't work.
UK has pretty much the cheapest iphone plans in industrialized Europe --- this is a country that allows simlocking, allows iphone exclusivity and had the most expensive 3G auction on the planet.
1. Credit card.
2. Pay later? You might be out of the country in a day or an hour. You pay as you go for anything but your primary carrier (ie: AT&T US). Apple will eventually handle all of these payments for you. All you will see are simple fields in Settings.
3. How well is that working out for you now if you have an iPhone? The days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out.
1. Thought so. What if I don't want to give my name, credit card number, expiry date, security code, and home address to yet another phone company? And isn't this a hell of a lot more work than going into 7-11 and giving them a few dollars for a SIM? Again, they are taking away my freedom to do that.
2. So you have to pay first, i.e. give them your life story and credit history. Yeah... that's not infringing on my privacy at all...
3. It's working great. I have a credit card, actually, but even if I didn't, I could buy an unlocked iPhone in HK for cash, buy a stored value SIM in Hong Kong for cash or even subscribe to a monthly plan with ID and proof of address (no credit card needed) and pop the SIM into my cash-paid iPhone. Just because you don't have the freedom to do so in the US doesn't mean, "the days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out." The fact is they don't have to be and we shouldn't let them.
Embedded SIM is a bad idea.
Here's another scenario:
My friend's phone runs out of battery. He needs to make an urgent call. I pop out my SIM and he pops his in, and makes his call on his dollar. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
1. Thought so. What if I don't want to give my name, credit card number, expiry date, security code, and home address to yet another phone company? And isn't this a hell of a lot more work than going into 7-11 and giving them a few dollars for a SIM? Again, they are taking away my freedom to do that.
2. So you have to pay first, i.e. give them your life story and credit history. Yeah... that's not infringing on my privacy at all...
3. It's working great. I have a credit card, actually, but even if I didn't, I could buy an unlocked iPhone in HK for cash, buy a stored value SIM in Hong Kong for cash or even subscribe to a monthly plan with ID and proof of address (no credit card needed) and pop the SIM into my cash-paid iPhone. Just because you don't have the freedom to do so in the US doesn't mean, "the days of buying sims for cash for the iPhone is on it's way out." The fact is they don't have to be and we shouldn't let them.
Embedded SIM is a bad idea.
Here's another scenario:
My friend's phone runs out of battery. He needs to make an urgent call. I pop out my SIM and he pops his in, and makes his call on his dollar. How do I do that with an embedded SIM?
Plenty of countries require SIM card registrations. So you can't just buy a prepaid SIM card without giving them information as well.
Hong Kong has 6 carriers --- most of them owned by local billionaires who are willing to lose money to buy market share. This is why it had been the iphone paradise since day 1 (even though it had an iphone exclusive carrier). NOTHING is going to change the fact that the level of competition is determined by the number of carriers. It didn't matter that Hong Kong also had a fixture of network technology (they had a cdma network). It didn't matter that local laws allow simlocking.
If your phone is a simlocked phone and your friend has another carrier --- then your friend can't make the phone call either. Besides, if I need to make an urgent call and you as my friend try to nickel/dime me for that call --- you are no longer my friend.
Except if none of the operators in said country have implemented Apple's proprietary SIM registration feature. You see, the SIM has one thing going for it. It is utterly standardised.
Apple's idea locks you into Apple. That's the bad thing about it. From an operator lock, to a vendor lock. Or worst case: vendor + operator lock. At least the SIM allows me to change vendor if I wish. And operator if I had the foresight of buying an unlocked device (yes I do intensive international travel so an unlocked device is VERY convenient).
Regs, Jarkko
Divide and conquer! If only one carrier signs up, they "win" all the iPhone contracts coming into the country. That's a big incentive for any carrier to sign up, but also for remaining carriers to go in so that their competitors don't get all of that pie!
In any case as noted elsewhere in the thread, it looks like the GSMA is working on making this a standard. It will be interesting to see where the control lies with the eventual proposed standard (carrier, vendor, or god forbid, the customer!), and one would hope that Apple is working with them on this rather than investing in a proprietary system.
If your phone is a simlocked phone and your friend has another carrier --- then your friend can't make the phone call either. Besides, if I need to make an urgent call and you as my friend try to nickel/dime me for that call --- you are no longer my friend.
We're talking about unlocked phones here. Period. Your first point is irrelevant in this context.
So your friend who wants to borrow your phone to make an urgent call just checks his phone for the numbe... oh, wait.
Hong Kong has 6 carriers --- most of them owned by local billionaires who are willing to lose money to buy market share.
So all those carriers are losing money...
No, they are actually more profitable than any of the US carriers. NO LOCKING is the way to go. Embedded SIMS take locking and move it to another level. Double-lock. Locked into one carrier AND locked into one handset, instead of just being locked into one carrier. Greeeat!
Divide and conquer! If only one carrier signs up, they "win" all the iPhone contracts coming into the country. That's a big incentive for any carrier to sign up, but also for remaining carriers to go in so that their competitors don't get all of that pie!
In any case as noted elsewhere in the thread, it looks like the GSMA is working on making this a standard. It will be interesting to see where the control lies with the eventual proposed standard (carrier, vendor, or god forbid, the customer!), and one would hope that Apple is working with them on this rather than investing in a proprietary system.
Operators wanting iphone inbound roamers is directly proportional to apple marketshare. Consider that of all the subs in a network, only a few percent are incoming roamers. Now take apple's phone (not smartphone) marketshare and you start to see how much an operator would lose by not taking the apple tech in roaming cases. I'd say that the value is very low.
For home subs the story might be different, but operators are quite reluctant to adopt a single vendor's proprietary tech at a largr scale.
Well aware of GSM Assocs plans. There are at least two points to consider in that case.
1) GSM Assoc is not a standardisation body. It is a recommended practice body.
2) GSM association version is more likely to become an adopted standard than Apple+gemalto version. Unless they both become one and the same, I see Apple adopting a proprietary SIM tech as a bad thing for the consumer. It would also mean that there will be plenty of operators that will not have the tech. So it narrows consumer choice.