Re: More on the R-UIM (CDMA SIM Card) - Korea & China focus
MORE PHONES WILL USE SIM CARDS
cardtech.faulknergray.com
Card Technology
New Technology
July/August Edition
Consumers love mobile phones, and smart card vendors could not be happier. That is because the GSM technology used in some 250 million mobile phones requires a chip card inside the handset to identify a subscriber to the network operator.
With the boom in GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) phones, demand for subscriber identity module (SIM) cards took off last year, providing a big chunk of the revenues flowing to smart card manufacturers. (See story page 24).
And the news gets even better for chip card vendors, because, while SIM cards have been limited to GSM phones until now, they soon will be found in handsets that work in other digital phone networks. Analysts say that will help quadruple the demand for SIM cards within four years, providing smart card vendors with a solid base of orders.
Big steps in this direction were taken this spring by the promoters of the fastest-growing cell phone technology, CDMA (code division multiple access), developed by San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. CDMA subscribers worldwide more than doubled to 57 million in the past year, and CDMA's global share of cell phone users will grow from 11% this year to 17% in 2004, says London-based Ovum Ltd.
In recent months, the CDMA Development Group, an association of operators and vendors, developed a specification for a chip-based subscriber identity card, Qualcomm released enabling software and Schlumberger Ltd. released the first smart card for CDMA phones.
The CDMA organization calls its chip card a Removable User Identity Module, but it plays the same role as a SIM card in a GSM phone. Besides holding information about the subscriber's account, the card can hold such features as a list of frequently called phone numbers or remote banking software.
The Schlumberger RUIM card carries 32 kilobytes of EEPROM, the electrically erasable read-only memory that plays host to applications and data, and is based on the Java Card platform. While Schlumberger was the first vendor to offer a CDMA-compatible card, it will soon have competitors. "We want to provide our customers with a choice of cards," says Brian Rodrigues, a Qualcomm senior product manager.
Handsets that can take the RUIM card are expected to hit the market over the next several months, and South Korea, where CDMA is the dominant digital cell phone technology, is likely to be the first market to introduce the card to consumers. There are 26 million CDMA users in South Korea, Ovum says.
Operators in China and South Korea were the strongest proponents of adding a SIM-type card to CDMA phones. In particular, China Unicom, the country's second-largest mobile phone operator, attracted the attention of handset manufacturers earlier in the year when it announced plans to augment its current GSM network with a CDMA network to serve 40 million users by the end of 2003. Unicom later announced it was putting off its CDMA plans until it installs "third-generation" technology, that will allow operators to send large amounts of data to cell phones.
Despite that setback, and even though RUIM cards will not be required in CDMA phones, observers say many CDMA operators will offer the chip cards.
For one thing, operators want to capture revenues when their customers travel in GSM territories. With RUIM cards, a Korean business executive will be able to take his card out of his phone, put it into a GSM phone when traveling in Europe, and use his regular phone number. The calls will be billed by the Korean phone network. <<
- Eric - |
