Apple to change the global roaming picture?
 

Just came across with this article

Is Apple About to Cut Out the Carriers?: Tech News

It suggests that Apple may come out with the iPhone integrated with some sort of 'upgreadable SIM card', a SIM card that would be able to change to whatever operator Apple wanted on the fly.

This would open interesting possibilities for us global roamers. Imagine Apple selling for example an 'european package' of service where you get data and voice for not too much money. Apple makes agreements with local carriers or MVNOs and every time you visit a new country the iPhone automatically upgrades the SIM card so it behaves like a regular SIM card of the carrier. Not bad.

Pehaps Apple could do what Truphone is aspiring to do -- be a multinational MVNO.


Update. Take a look at this 2008 article:

http://www.unwiredview.com/2008/04/1...tent-says-yes/

From Apple??? :eek: :D

I see it as another way Apple can be in control rather than the customer. Just like the micro-SIM. The space saved by using a micro-SIM vs. a regular SIM is infinitesimal.

This may also be a reaction to people turning off the 3g data capabilities of iphones and ipads when roaming internationally (who likely got burned on data roaming rates). Better to make a small profit off of every data download than make nothing at all.

Soldering a SIM substitute to the mother board could be targeted at blocking use of the phone on unapproved carriers.

Well I guess something similar does exist already. When using Kindle 3G, you have free access to internet in about 100 countries. You can use the browser in Kindle. So I dont see reason, why Apple couldnt make it.

I'd be curious how Amazon has pulled this off -- a multi-MVNO relationship?

Apple and Amazon have completely different business models and intentions. While 3G connectivity just serves an an expedient for Amazon in order to sell digital content, Apple are focussed on increasing operators' revenues, from which they receive a share. Of course Apple also sell content (i.e. apps, music, videos), but they benefit from higher network revenues, while Amazon don't. So Apple probably have no interest in making data roaming cheaper. Further operators are Apples most important distribution channel, since due to the high price of the iPhone most of them are sold subsidized on contract. If Apple started their own MVNO-product they would compete with their largest customers which is likely to have an impact on sales and as you might now mobile network service is a quite unattractive low-margin business.
So I consider it rather unlikely that Apple might start their own mobile network service, allthough that would fit into their strategy of capturing the whole value chain.

The problem is that most people turn their data off when their iPhone leaves their home country. Even the default roaming settings essentially do that. People will blast through their 50 euro allowance in their first couple of hours and stop using the phone. If Orange FR offered to sell your your O2 UK 200 megs for 20 Euros payable via the App store (while allowing you to keep your UK mobile number and voice calling channel), how would that play out? 02 would lose data roaming, but keep a piece of the buy and people wouldn't be afraid to use their iPhone abroad.

Why is this SIM change being rolled out in Europe first? Yanks don't leave their country as much much because the US is physically as large as the EU. Most of the US borders aren't into populated Reas. US cities near Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Baja California are the exceptions, but more of the border are places like North Dakota.

As I noted earlier, this could also be an attempt to thwart unlockers.

That would require the iPhone not only having two (virtual) SIM cards, but also two RF units - one that would maintain network connection for your home SIM card and one for a second SIM, for which the extra roaming data plan would be actived.

If operators were ready for such cooperation they would just provide way better wholesale prices to each other and so enable each other offering such data roaming options without the technical challenges such a MultiSIM-solution would involve.

This would be rolled out in Europe first, because we have 3-4 competing operators running their network on the same iPhone-compatible frequency band (UMTS2100) in each European country, which provides a much higher incentive to use an iPhone on another network than in the US, where the iPhone will only work on a single 3G network (AT&T) and switching to the only other iPhone-compatible operator (T-Mobile) means abandoning 3G speeds, which has a strong impact on user experience.

This is the most likely reason. Apple just want to keep full control over your iPhone.

Apple thwarted me unlocking my iPhone. They sold it to me unlocked in the first place. Mission accomplished? :)

Then there is jailbreaking...

But besides the regular waiving for firmware updates until another jailbreak method emerges, for how long will iPhones be jailbreakable?: Apple iOS auto-lock iOS patent application could monitor iPhone jailbreak/unlocking - SlashGear

I think the appropriate question may be how impregnable the iPhone 5 will be. I think that the hackers have come up with techniques that will require hardware changes to keep them out, but Apple knows that that the iPhone 4s will be pretty much dead in a couple of years.

The only thing that Apple has going against them right now is that since jailbreaking is legal in the US, there can be a fair amount of resources put into the problem. I'm not a gamer, but has Microsoft and Sony managed to boot the modded systems off their network most of the time? That may be the best comparison.