Friday, November 19, 2010

GSMA Launches Embedded SIM Initiative

The GSMA, the global association of GSM mobile providers, today announced the formation of a task force of mobile operators to explore the development of an embedded SIM that can be remotely activated.

The move is expected to enable the design of new form factors for mobile communications, especially machine-to-machine devices, cameras, MP3 players, navigation devices and e-readers and smart meters.

The idea is to make the devices easy to sell in traditional retail venues, but also easy to activate for service later, on any GSM network. You can probably expect the carriers not to be quite so enthusiastic to embrace the same concept for mobile phones, though.

Extended to smartphones, users could buy any device they wanted, so long as it was GSM standards compliant, and activate with any GSM service provider. I doubt the carriers would enjoy the loss of control that would mean.

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