SIM Cards have been around for over 30 years and are, beyond any doubt, a remarkable piece of technology. These smart cards are basically chips that store information identifying users on mobile networks. They give their owner access to a phone number, text messaging, calls, internet services, and so on. In 2018, it was claimed that there are more than 7 billion active SIM cards in circulation, a number that surely has increased since then.
The first generation of SIM cards was considerably bigger in size in comparison with today’s SIM cards. They were as big as bank cards – a size which is nowadays referred to as full-size SIM. The very first one was developed in 1991 by the German company Giesecke & Devrient. Interestingly, it was introduced to the market 8 years later than the first commercial cellphone in the world – Motorola DynaTac 8000X, meaning handheld phones originally did not use SIM cards.
As mobile technology advanced, so did the SIM cards. The second generation saw a much smaller design that has been circulating since 1996 and is often referred to as standard SIM or mini-SIM. Later on, another downsizing brought the micro-SIM with backward compatibility to prior, larger SIM readers, and finally, the latest and smallest SIM card was released in 2012. This so-called nano-SIM has been reigning in the market ever since.
The evolution of SIM cards and the advancements in technology, in general, raise the question of what is in store for SIM cards and what we should expect to see. Judging from the rising popularity of all-things-virtual, it is very likely that the physical SIM cards will gradually fade away and will be replaced by eSIMs or iSIMs instead.
Embedded SIMs, more commonly known as eSIMs, are programmable SIMs that are embedded into a dedicated chip inside a mobile device. They make it super easy to connect your cellphone to a mobile network and completely eliminate the need to visit a physical shop to get a card or to wait for it to arrive – in case you ordered it to be delivered.
Another widely discussed possibility is the introduction of iSIMs, which are by many considered the next big thing in SIM technology and might even mean we will skip the eSIM era altogether and move directly to iSIMs. Integrated SIM (iSIM) has the potential to cause a revolution in the cellular Internet of Things(IoT) technology. It is directly integrated into the chip of a device, making it smaller, more reliable and much more advanced than an eSIM.
Both eSIM and iSIM technology are still in the early stages of their widespread implementation and further development but they are steadily making their way into the market. Nevertheless, the domination of either one or the other over traditional SIM cards might yet take a while but it seems to be just a matter of time, unless, of course, a completely different breakthrough technology beats them to it.
