Usage in Mobile Phone Standards
The use of SIM cards is mandatory in GSM devices.
The satellite phone networks Iridium, Thuraya and Inmarsat's BGAN also use SIM cards. Sometimes these SIM cards work in regular GSM phones and also allow GSM customers to roam in satellite networks by using their own SIM card in a satellite phone.
Japan's 2G PDC system (which was shut down in 2012; SoftBank Mobile has already shut down PDC from March 31, 2010) also specifies a SIM, but this has never been implemented commercially. The specification of the interface between the Mobile Equipment and the SIM is given in the RCR STD-27 annex 4. The Subscriber Identity Module Expert Group was a committee of specialists assembled by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to draw up the specifications (GSM 11.11) for interfacing between smart cards and mobile telephones. In 1994, the name SIMEG was changed to SMG9.
Japan's current and next generation cellular systems are based on W-CDMA (UMTS) and CDMA2000 and all use SIM cards, however japanese CDMA2000-based phones are locked to the R-UIM they are associated with and thus the cards are not interchangable with other japanese CDMA2000 handsets (though they may be inserted into GSM/WCDMA handsets for roaming purposes outside Japan).
CDMA-based devices originally did not use a removable card, and the service for these phones bound to a unique identifier contained in the handset itself. This is most prevalent in operators in the Americas. The first publication of the TIA-820 standard (also known as 3GPP2 C.S0023) in 2000 defined the Removable User Identity Module (R-UIM). Card-based CDMA devices are most prevalent in Asia.
The equivalent of a SIM in UMTS is called the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC), which runs a USIM application. The UICC is still colloquially called a SIM card.
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SIM card for Thuraya satellite phone
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Dialog Postpaid SIM card (front).jpg
Dialog's SIM card (front)
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Dialog Postpaid SIM card (rear).jpg
Dialog's SIM card (rear)
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KDDI's au IC-Card
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NTT DoCoMo's FOMA Card
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UMTS modem with SIM card
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SIM card and the mobile phone
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Three UK SIM Card with Packaging
Read more about this topic: Simcard
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