Massive SIM Card for Italians

Oberthur Card Systems and Italy's TIM have developed the first 1MB U-SIM card. TIM's strategic requirements were to combine several issues such as security, interface speed, user profile portability and mobile independency, while proposing the most advanced services. Based on previous experience and services on the 128KB card and thanks to the JSR 177 API's, TIM envisions a far richer environment on the 1MB USIM card.

The USIM card usually stores critical subscriber authentication information and private data such as personal phone directories and messages. In the emerging 3G world, where multimedia content such as MMS, audio or video downloads are widely used, memory capability and interface speed are crucial issues. Furthermore, because this personal private data is stored in the USIM card rather than the mobile phone memory, it roams with the subscriber from one handset to another.

Large memory capacity USIM cards present an opportunity for mobile operators to improve their current services taking advantage of emerging standard such as JSR 177 and the new generation of multimedia handsets."

Posted to the site on 1st March 2004