
SIM Cards Must Die - adeelk
http://ilyabirman.net/meanwhile/2012/03/23/1/
======
PanMan
I'm afraid if we kill SIM cards, the opposite will happen: your phone will be
locked to one network, and switching networks means switching hardware (beyond
just the sim). I really like that while traveling I can just buy a local sim,
put it in my own phone, and use it. That would only work in these wireframes
if all operators would agree to support this. Which I think they won't.

~~~
lwhi
Yep, a SIM card gives freedom from networks and the ability to change numbers
easily and use pay as you go services when travelling.

There's no way killing SIM cards would be a good thing.

~~~
gnu8
Americans don't know that because their phone companies forbid that practice.
AT&T doesn't even bother to move your SIM card from your old iPhone to your
new iPhone when you upgrade, they just give you a new card.

~~~
kamjam
Really, they give you a new sim on upgrade? I can understand this if you are
upgrading _TO_ an iPhone since you need a micro SIM, but rather pointless
otherwise.

I think I've had the same SIM card for about 6-7 years now!

~~~
CraigRood
Older sims dont have 3G capabilities either. (Not sure why)

~~~
kamjam
Mine is defo new enough that it supports that! Anyone know if you need a new
sim card to support 4G services?

~~~
CrazedGeek
IIRC, yes, at least for AT&T's LTE -- HSDPA (and HSUPA, HSPA+, etc) will work
just fine with a 3G SIM (since they're just souped-up 3G).

------
jdietrich
The SIM is an integral part of the GSM standard and provides a huge range of
benefits. The point of their existence is to establish the identity of a
subscriber _independently of a handset_ , which has a lot of interesting,
useful and important side-effects.

A very large proportion of GSM subscribers use dual-sim handsets, to take
advantage of the cheapest available tariffs. This is the norm in price-
sensitive markets like China, India and Africa.

Many GSM subscribers use several phones with the same SIM. Outdoor enthusiasts
switch their SIM between their smartphone and a rugged dumbphone. Some ladies
use a smartphone during the week when they use their normal handbag, but
switch to a tiny dumbphone for parties.

The SIM makes life very easy for small carriers to connect new subscribers. In
London, virtually every shopping centre and high street has someone handing
out SIMs for Lyca or Lebara, two Virtual Network Operators offering cheap
international calls to mainly immigrant customers. They can connect
subscribers on the spot in a matter of seconds.

IMO we should be working in the opposite direction, towards a proliferation of
SIM-like devices in other markets. A physical token which securely establishes
a pseudonymous identity on a network is quite ingenious and facilitates all
sorts of really elegant HCI.

~~~
stevenwei
I've found that the opposite is true when traveling - every new country I go
to requires a different (local prepaid) sim card. My iPhone 4S stays the same,
but I end up with a new sim card and phone number while I'm in the country,
and then end up throwing out the sim card once I leave.

~~~
danoprey
Try something like <http://www.globalsimcard.co.uk/index.php> or
<http://www.roammobility.com/sim-card> , one SIM that automatically goes local
whichever country you are in.

------
Loic
I suppose you live in the US, with only a couple of huge carriers. I live in
Germany, I am French, travelling a lot between France, Belgium, Netherlands,
Denmark and Switzerland. I am so happy with the SIM card system. I can switch
carrier if I want easily (swap the SIM card) but especially:

I do not care when I travel which carrier my phone will pick. It will work,
nothing to do and I know what it will cost in advance.

I love SIM cards.

Update: Keep reading the thread with very good comments about identity. The
added benefit of the SIM card is that it is protecting/managing your identity
on the network without a hard link between your phone and you.

~~~
stoolpigeon
This

I travel enough to see the benefits as well. Phones that handle multiple sim
cards are also nice.

I also view it as an added layer of security. My phone can't be connected to
the network until the pin for my sim is entered. The ability to save data to
the sim is also a nice feature. I don't really see any reason for them to go
away.

~~~
sepposade
Each phone could have a built in key for signing. You could tell operators to
not allow any other phone except for yours (which has this key) to access your
account. Not a problem.

~~~
stoolpigeon
What happens here - is the phone itself becomes the sim card. That is
troublesome on a number of levels. I'd rather push those functions to a little
piece of plastic that is easy to move between handsets.

"You could tell operators"... How and where? When I'm in Thailand on vacation,
I want data but I don't want to have to worry about registering my phone - I
just go to kiosk and get a sim.

When I was in Ethiopia a few weeks ago getting a sim took a bit of work. I had
to give them photos and some other documentation. A lot of governments are
moving this way. Once it was done though, I had the sims I needed and the
phone choices were wide open.

Maybe I'm missing a piece of the puzzle but in my experience the sim is what
makes me free. The idea that the existence of a sim == being locked down comes
from a broken telecom system not a technical limitation of the format.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
There are some countries you do have to give extra documentation, and often
providers will rip you off by giving you more airtime only if you register.

Funny you mention Ethiopia, the telecom there is completely state controlled,
and it has been used to thwart opposition (listen in on calls, shut down
complete SMS, etc). It's one of the many "remnants" of the communist regime.
Supposedly Orange was coming in to manage and change that however...

------
kalleboo
"Why isn’t Apple fighting to kill the SIM cards?"

They tried: [http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/05/24/apple-wanted-
to-...](http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/05/24/apple-wanted-to-kill-the-
sim/)

Personally I'm a big supporter of SIM cards. While competing network systems
(CDMA, iDEN) were designed to lock in networks and users to a single vendor,
GSM was designed by a consortium of european national telecoms at every single
layer to ensure that all the stakeholders (users, telecoms, regulators) had as
much interoperability and freedom as possible, and SIM cards are the user's
end of that plan.

If Apple implemented his proposal, you can bet iPhone users would only be able
to pick special overpriced iPhone plans, instead of just using whatever
prepaid plan they want.

------
josteink
This guy so doesn't get it. It's almost as if he is trolling.

SIM cards (as implemented everywhere in the world except the US) is made to
allow exactly the portability which he seeks.

I fail to see why it is even linked here.

Edit: Also why is he illustrating this with an _iPhone_? Is it for lulz that
he in the name of advocating openness links to the closest closed phone of all
out there?

I'm voting troll here.

~~~
devy
"I'm voting troll here." - Me too. Sorry for asking a noob quesiton, how do
you vote troll on HN?

~~~
skystorm
I don't think you literally "vote" troll, it was meant more symbolically. :)

------
rlpb
I think the author is conflating SIM cards with vendor lock-in. Phones locked
to SIM cards from a particular carrier are not good. If you want them to die,
then fine - but that's got nothing to do with SIM cards.

SIM cards as authentication tokens work just fine. My phone takes SIM cards
from any carrier. If I want to switch carriers, the new carrier just sends me
a new SIM card.

Get rid of SIM cards, and you're going to end up with a security problem with
keys being copied/cloned from phones. You're going to find that you need some
kind of authentication based on a hardware crypto token, and will end up
inventing...the SIM card.

~~~
kamjam
In the UK now (possibly the EU) at the end of your contract (normally 18-24
months) the carrier has to unlock your phone now, my brother just came to the
end of his contract and had his iPhone unlocked for free.

~~~
bad_user
In the EU in general you can unlock your phone for a price, even if you're
under contract.

The last time I checked Orange was charging something like 70 EUR for
unlocking iPhones under contract, which is really not bad, considering you get
the freedom to put any SIM in it after that.

Also, my own mobile carrier (Cosmote) sells subsidized unlocked iPhones.
Basically for them the contract is enough to keep you "locked" as if you
terminate early, you have to give back the subsidy you received for the
remaining time, which is fair to both consumers and the mobile carrier.

It's crazy how better the mobile carriers are in Europe, versus the US.

------
NLips
The SIM card is so you CAN easily change your identity / phone. Without a SIM,
how does the network verify your identity? A simple username and password are
not as secure, and tying your identity to your phone is exactly what SIM cards
were introduced to avoid.

~~~
latch
A username and password is secure enough for things more important than this.

~~~
bnegreve
Hum ... like what ? It is quite critical, someone with your username/passwd
would be able to call for several hours without you knowing it.

~~~
latch
A lot of banks don't support two-form authentication. A lot of online
merchants keep credit card information on file and allow for quick check-outs.

~~~
jonknee
And they count on being able to use your phone to confirm identity. Someone
could hack your bank and phone at the same time so when you get a call about
the suspicious transaction, it really goes to the hacker who says "yep, that
was me".

------
dagw
I don't see what sim cards have to do with locking in customers. Even in his
hypothetical sim-free future there is nothing preventing the carrier from
saying "if you select this plan you must pay us $59/month for the next 2 years
before we let you cancel".

~~~
masklinn
Indeed, as can be seen with Verizon (which does not use SIM cards on account
of being a CDMA network)

And the other way around, nothing in SIM cards mandate lock-ins, I bought my
phone unlocked (the previous one was bought simlocked and I'd made use of my
legal rights to get it unlocked 6 months into my contract) and my current ISP
is pre-paid, no-contract on SIMs. I ordered a SIM from them, popped it into my
phone and I fill the account when I need to.

And when I travel across europe, I can trivially get cheapo pre-paid SIMs and
put them in if I need to. There is no lock anywhere.

In fact, I'd expect far _more_ lock-in with TFA's solution: my current indie
ISP never managed to get a reply from Apple when they tried to get their IPCC
into iTunes (so user would not have to enter e.g. data network info by hand),
Apple only deals with big ISPs, not with virtual operators for a few tens of
thousand clients in minor euro countries.

------
ericmoritz
I have an old Moto Razr that I put my SIM card in when I go on long bike rides
in the boonies. The battery lasts longer and if I fall I don't have to worry
about crushing my smartphone.

------
edandersen
SIM cards are the only thing left protecting consumers from carriers and to a
lesser extent Apple. Apple still lock out features (APN settings, tethering)
even on SIM-free models of the iPhone when a "recognized" carrier is
connected. The _only_ reason they do this is to protect carriers.

------
kochbeck
There's actually a really good reason why this isn't coming anytime soon to
the US: number portability is not entirely centralized, and the porting system
is built to run in batch, not in realtime.

So if, say, Sprint issues a portability request to Syniverse (the mapping
platform provider) so that they can have your number from Verizon, Syniverse
puts that request in the next batch. Then the batch gets passed to VZ for
evaluation for things like whether you still owe them money. If you're good to
go, VZ kills your DN (that's your number and the associated SVC mapping), and
your VZ service goes dead. Then they pass your record back to Syniverse who
then passes the thumbs-up and the number to Sprint who sets up a new DN to
your new service (and presumably your new handset if you're going from one
locked-in CDMA net to another).

That's a really watered down, 4am version of what happens. But the upshot of
all of it is that if it worked like WiFi SSID switching, every time you
switched, you'd probably lose service for awhile. If all things work for the
good, the switch can take like 10 minutes. I'm sure they could get it down to
1 or 2. But probably not 0.

Here's the punchline... the SIM card in GSM was specifically designed to
OBVIATE the need for all that (also to act as an encryption key, but that got
hacked years ago). The SIM is supposed to authenticate you to a particular DN
and link you back to a billing record at your primary carrier. The theory was
that every carrier would create roaming treaties, and you'd just wander from
network to network, oblivious to whose actual network you were on. And your
primary carrier would sort it out on the backend. And in many places, it
actually pretty much works that way. You can carry 3 or 4 cards and swap
carriers and numbers based on the plan you want to use. Because the phones
aren't locked to a single carrier's cards.

A good example of this is that in the T-Mobile / AT&T breakup, they came to an
agreement to allow cross-network roaming sometime late this year. So if you're
a TMo subscriber, but you've got an AT&T signal, even in a TMo service area,
you'll just ride AT&T instead.

So essentially the reason it doesn't already work this way is because A) CDMA
is so popular in the US, and CDMA really requires the rigorous porting
process, and B) the carriers who do support it (AT&T, TMo and Sprint on their
now-dwindling GSM net) have been jerks about it for years. It's a business
decision, not a technical one.

------
JoshTriplett
In principle, I love this idea. In practice, without a great deal of work,
this will make it much more difficult to switch between _phones_ , which
typically occurs more often than switching carriers. Right now, you can pull
out a SIM and put it in a new phone, and you can immediately use the phone
number with that new phone, without any interaction with the carrier.

~~~
masklinn
> In practice, without a great deal of work, this will make it much more
> difficult to switch between phones, which typically occurs more often than
> switching carriers.

In practice it also makes it much more difficult to switch between carriers
(which is in fact much more common than switching between phones when you
travel across Europe or south-east asia): to switch carriers right now, I just
need to replace my current SIM with a new one (assuming the phone is not SIM-
locked, which it is not).

------
Drbble
Nice, the intellectual failure of the "must die" meme in the headline
correctly predicted the intellectual failure of the article. SIM cards solve a
real problem for the consumer in a convenient way. Better to replace a 5
dollar card than a 500 dollar phone when I travel, and lucky to be able to
transfer phones easily.

------
andrewaylett
If your sim is implemented in software, how do you take it out of your
smartphone when it breaks or runs out of battery and put it in a different
phone?

------
celebdor
As an engineer working in the SIM card industry, as long as they add some
other form of secure element for placing highly sensitive data like bank/id
applets it would still be reasonable.

As others have commented though, I'm afraid that they would use it to lock the
consumer to phone specific plans.

I like a lot the ability to take my SIM card to other phones, as it allows to
carry some kind of ID with me, there are better and seamless ways of doing
that that I can't wait to be implemented and deployed (a user and password to
put when booting the phone is not a solution).

------
cpswan
The industry has been working on software SIMs for some time. I had a telco
talking to me about the initiative years ago.

The problem is that the soft SIM provisioning process will become like DRM for
phones. The users desires and the service providers desires are fundamentally
misaligned here. Users want to be able to choose freely from the best tariffs
available to them in a given location. Service providers want to lock people
in and keep roaming expensive.

~~~
ragmondo
But surely this until the first carrier breaks the deadlock and then decides
to offer soft SIMS to tourists ? Then the rest of then will be forced to
follow on or else be squeezed out of the market. In fact, if you were a small-
ish based carrier, then you could benefit from first-to-market as well as not
being eaten by your customers going abroad (as you were first!).

------
bbrizzi
I'm afraid the author of this blog post doesn't know what a SIM card is.

First of all, it's a secure element: it allows authentication of the user's
credentials with the cell phone. SIMs and smart cards in general provide
security at the hardware level as well as the software level (using Triple DES
encryption).

Also, they are essential in NFC: that standard is developed around the SIM
card and the ISO 14443 standard.

Recent technology also allows the development of Java programs WITHIN the SIM
card (it's called a JavaCard: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card> ) and
allows to use a single SIM for multiple applications. For instance, you could
use your phone's SIM as a mobile wallet, a metro pass, etc...

Of course, as many others have noted in this thread, removing the SIM card
would just add the vendor lock-in inside the phone.

Where I live (France), most phones can be legally (or illegally) unlocked to
accept different SIM cards.

~~~
18pfsmt
FYI, SIM cards aren't necessary for NFC. In fact, it is only the carriers that
would prefer the SIM be used as the secure element, as they have control over
it. Other potential NFC players would prefer the secure element be separate,
so that the carrier doesn't have control over NFC-based transactions. And, ISO
14443 is not directly related NFC, which is governed by ISO 18092 and ISO
21481.

------
wandernotlost
Ironically, the SIM card is exactly the technology that enables the scenario
the author describes, and it exists today (maybe not so much in the US).

"Select from this list to send your payment information to an unknown carrier"
is not exactly a realistic scenario. Instead, you have an agreement with an
organization (let's call it "your carrier") who handles your payment
information/billing, then that organization makes arrangements with other
carriers to allow you to roam on their networks. The SIM is your account
identifier, and most (GSM) phones allow you to select among available
networks. Anyone who has used their GSM phone abroad has probably experienced
this.

The only thing preventing the scenario he describes from being more common
today is the reality of capital expenditure required to build a network and
the consolidation of carriers (aka botched deregulation), making it uncommon
in the US to have any real choice.

------
jeffpalmer
While the concept is solid, getting carriers to go along with this is going to
be impossible I would imagine. The other issue at hand is hardware pricing,
especially for US consumers.

In the US, carriers love to lock their customers in by SIM locking their
subsidized hardware and customers have come to expect this low cost subsidized
hardware.

If you suddenly switched to a system where hardware was sold at retail cost,
there would be a lot of confusion. I am guessing that if you ask the typical
US consumer if they would like to buy their iPhone at $199 and commit to a
contract or pay $649 for the ability to switch to another carrier at will,
they will choose the contract option. It's what they have come to expect.

This type of system seems more suited to work in countries where subscribers
already purchase unlocked hardware at full retail prices.

~~~
dasil003
Sure US consumers are generally ignorant about the ins and outs of subsidized
hardware, and they take 2-year contracts as a matter of course. But there's no
reason a lot of people wouldn't pay full price if the economics were laid
bare.

For instance, when I tell my US friends that I pay £15 / month for unlimited
data, 300 mins, and 3000 texts on my iPhone _with tethering_ in the UK, it
blows their minds. The fact that I can hop over to another country, buy a sim
card for 10 bucks and instantly have data without having to sit on hold and
beg a customer service rep to unlock my phone and then wait weeks is another
huge bonus that any internationally traveling American can appreciate.

The only problem right now is that major carriers have a good thing going with
overpriced contract plans and see little reason to offer reasonably priced pay
as you go, thus giving Americans the impression that mobile service is
inherently more expensive than it is and believing that they are getting a
great deal with subsidized phones. But with globalization this illusion is
bound to come crumbling down sooner or later, and customers will demand more.

------
devy
Obviously the author of this blog post (a Russian Designer) is an outsider of
telecom industry. Neither would I believe s/he knows anything about a standard
called "GSM", let alone the part where how GSM handsets id/authenticate with
the network and the purpose of SIM card is. The proof of my assertion? Check
out the sketch on the page, there is a ghost mobile carrier indicator "ABC 3G"
there for all three screens.

Piece of advice: before you attack on technologies, make sure you understand
it first, the history and the reason why they exists. Otherwise, you are going
to be a public joke on HN.

I recommend him/her to read this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subscriber_Identity_Module>

A little

------
aden_76
Apple would love to kill the sim card. They have numerous patents around
technologies that will enable the SIM card to become software based.
[http://www.nfcworld.com/2011/11/09/311213/apple-patents-
sim-...](http://www.nfcworld.com/2011/11/09/311213/apple-patents-sim-within-
secure-element-technology/) The carriers won't want this at all. They are
trying to move payments from a card (with a chip) to another card (with a very
similar chip i.e. the SIM) but this feels pointless to me. The SIM and the
plastic payment card have had their day.

------
spiralpolitik
While an interesting read, its pure idealism on the part of the author.

For SIM cards to die as the author imagines the carriers would have to accept
that in the future they nothing more than dumb data pipes. This would be
excellent news for all consumers.

The US carriers have spent billions in marketing and lobbying to avoid
becoming dumb data pipes so they will not accept this future.

And until the US regulator wakes up and starts regulating the carriers, then
the status quo will prevail.

------
anonymous987
I want a phone that tests network signal strength for each call-- and uses the
best network each time. I might use Verizon in the morning, AT&T at noon, and
Sprint in the afternoon, depending upon how many real bars the phone is
getting. For each Latitude/Longitude the carriers should have a realtime +/-
score of how well they support that area.

------
matthiasb
I read that iPads in France let you choose the 3G network during the first
boot. Sounds silimar to what the author is proposing. If anybody has a
screenshot of that screen, please share.
[http://store.apple.com/fr/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/...](http://store.apple.com/fr/browse/home/shop_ipad/family/ipad/select_ipad2)

------
tuananh
not practical. sim card is like our citizen id card. digitalize all you want,
but we must always keep a physical card.

------
The_Sponge
When you go to select the list of carriers on your phone as you propose, your
phone will only be able to show carriers for which it can tranceive. It's not
like they all share the same spectrum.

Furthermore, switching numbers and accounts, and transferring them to other
phones could be made more complex.

------
satori99
In Australia, you must provide ID to purchase a SIM card. Whether it is pre-
paid or post-paid. It is illegal to sell a SIM anonymously. I guess this is
for law enforcement reasons, and that they wouldn't like to lose the ability
to match a SIM with a citizen quickly and easily.

------
linker3000
On a batch of 17 new phones rolled out about 30 days ago, we have had 3 iPhone
users report problems that were tracked down to faulty/failed SIMs and one
'regular' SIM has failed in another phone - so I'm rather wishing SIM cards
wouldn't keep dying!

------
dave1010uk
This is already here with WiFi networks and VoIP systems (e.g. Skype). You can
log in to Skype from any phone and your calls will be billed to your account.
You can even log in to Skype on your friend's phone or you can choose another
VoIP provider.

------
ragmondo
Hmmmm. Here's my post from 9 days ago :
<http://ragmondocom.appspot.com/2012/03/Who-needs-SIM-cards> \- I propose
virtual downloadable SIM cards....

~~~
stoolpigeon
NLIps says it below - and I agree - the problem I see with this 'virtual sim'
is that it is less secure.

~~~
ragmondo
Not if you use the same ssl certification authority mechanism that browsers
use (obviously with some improvements to avoid common pitfalls). In fact, I
would argue that it would be more secure (with revocation lists etc etc). Gone
are the days that your phone can't do rapid handshaking / crypto etc etc.

------
mariuolo
Mr. Birman's argument is so idiotic that he looks like a shill for telcos.

------
boondoggle
Apple already have a patent for a virtual SIM card:
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/11/apple_sim_patent/>

~~~
josteink
I hear Apple and patents have a good track-record of ending up as
standardized, reusable technology. A very good track, record indeed.

If this has been already patented by the Cupertino-based patent-troll, it is
by definition doomed as a standard.

------
poundy
One additional issue is certain countries (eg: India) require a photographic
ID, etc before they issue a SIM. This is becoming a larger issue in Europe and
elsewhere.

------
MehdiEG
IMHO the original posts and many of the comments are mixing up very different
and somewhat unrelated issues.

Issue #1 The SIM card, as a piece of plastic used to identify your phone
number and mobile operator, is indeed pre-historic technology. It's quite
unbelievable that we're still using such a system in 2012. Unless I'm missing
something, what a SIM card does could easily be done in software and this is
part of what the OP is suggesting. I don't think that there is any doubt that
the SIM card, as a data / identity storage system should be retired.

Issue #2 The issue of operator-issued mobile phones being locked to that
specific operator is unrelated to whether or not the phone uses a SIM card. A
phone can be locked to a specific operator, regardless of whether or not it
uses a SIM card. In many countries, operators lock all their phones, meaning
that you can't use a SIM card from any other operators in your phone.

If you live in a country where all phones are sold unlocked or where phones
can be unlocked after a certain period of time, it's almost certainly because
mobile phone operators are being forced by law to do so. Not because the
phones use SIM cards.

So the freedom to switch between operators at any time isn't a technical issue
linked to SIM cards. It's just a matter of whether or not operators can
legally prevent you to do it. If operators can legally lock their phone,
they'll obviously do it. Why wouldn't they?

It's worth noting that if you want an unlocked phone, you can always just buy
it straight from manufacturer - there's nothing that forces you to buy a phone
from an operator (apart from the price, but I'll touch on that later). So this
issue is actually already solved - it's just that many people don't think
their freedom to switch between operators is worth the upfront cost.

Issue #3 Being tied to a long contract and not being able to switch between
operators and plans at anytime is another unrelated issue. But then, it's a
pain you choose to have. There's nothing that forces you to sign up for a
contract. Most operators offer pay-as-you-go plans with no contracts. In the
UK for example, well over 50% of the population is on pay-as-you-go (or was
the last time I looked) so pay-as-you-go can definitely work.

Obviously, operators much prefer when you sign up for a contract. Just like
tech startups go crazy for subscription business models - it's nice to get
money automatically every month. So they try to trick people into signing up
for long contracts by offering subsidised phones. And many people fall for
that.

What it all comes down to. Most, if not all these problems, arise because of
the perception by people in most countries that mobile phones should be free
or reasonably cheap. People don't find it a problem to spend £600 on a laptop.
But tell them they have to spend £600 to buy a new phone and they freak out.
This is despite the fact that many people do the same thing on their phone as
they do on their laptop and use their phones a lot more than their laptop.

It's this way of thinking that results in far too many people signing up for
long contracts with operators, allowing operators to subject them to their
every will. Changing this perception and making people buy mobile phones in
the same way as they buy laptops (i.e. without subsidies and straight from the
manufacturer) is what we would need to really change the statu quo. Whether or
not phones use SIM card is merely a small technical detail (but one I'd love
to see fixed nonetheless).

~~~
drdaeman
> The SIM card, as a piece of plastic used to identify your phone number and
> mobile operator, is indeed pre-historic technology.

I highly doubt so. SIM cards are hardware tokens, which securely hold
cryptographic keys — are those things obsolete or pre-historic?

They're holding a shared encryption key (so-called Ki) but never reveal it
directly. This is the point of SIM cards.

SIM cards could (and, I believe, were) implemented in software, but such
implementations reduce security, usability or both.

(Yes, nowadays, I believe, almost no operator would tell you what Ki is
recorded on your SIM card, so you won't be able to clone the card. But that's
a completely another issue.)

------
elchief
Ya man, fuck economics.

------
wavephorm
A better fight would be to push for 802.22 (super-wifi) broadband ISP's. Cell
networks are obviously going to have a hissy-fit when any competition to their
3G and 4G oligopolies get tumbled over by superior technology. Due to the
corruption of US politics I seriously doubt this will ever see the day of
light.

[http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/07/ieee-
completes-62-mile-s...](http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/07/ieee-
completes-62-mile-super-wi-fi-wireless-broadband-standard/)

------
Radzell
This seems crazy. Business are built to make money not to be logical. This
would make customer happy, but I think that aspect is secondary to making
guaranteed money. Plus if we lock people in this way it would make it hard for
new smaller companies to come in like a Metro. They are smaller and cheaper,
but we should give bigger companies control over if they can compete. I don't
dislike big companies, but I know they aren't good or evil also. They are
greedy as they should be.

