GSMA, or GSM Association, is an organization founded in 1995 by the largest mobile phone operators and mobile phone manufacturers with the idea of creating standards for the implementation of new functions in mobile phones sold worldwide.
Today the GSMA made a very interesting announcement, saying that it has established a standard, accepted by most of its members, by which future mobile phones and wearables or gadgets connected to the Internet will have Integrated SIMs instead of those entered manually in them.
Specifically, these devices will have a special chip that eliminates the need to buy a SIM card from a telephone operator to insert it into that device, the product already having everything it needs to connect to a telephone network furniture or other.
The idea to implement integrated SIM cards in smartphones it is old, the Apple company tried to convince mobile phone manufacturers and operators to adopt it, and now it seems that it has finally been accepted by everyone, the standardization being a precursor to the implementation in mobile terminals.
This is the first industry backed global consumer remote SIM specification. A global approach and consistent user experience will grow the Internet of Things by allowing consumer device manufacturers to build a new range of products for global deployment based on this common embedded SIM architecture. The specification is available now enabling the launch of new devices.
Many mobile phone operators and smartphone manufacturers support this standard, and although Apple is not among those mentioned by the GSMA, this does not mean that its support does not exist, but only that it is trying to make it clear that it is not interested of implementation.
It is unlikely that iPhone 7 to have an integrated SIM card, however iPhone 7S could come with such a chip, the elimination of the SIM card slot allowing a substantial reduction in the thickness of smartphones.
