During the Mobile World Congress, the telephony fair in Barcelona which closes today, Qualcomm announced the arrival of the iSim (Integrated Sim).
This is a new technology that allows a smartphone processor, the beating heart of every mobile phone, to already integrate everything necessary to activate a data and voice plan with supported operators.
In fact, in the near future, there will be no more mobile phones with a physical SIM card tray.
Something that is already possible today with eSims, which however require a dedicated chip which, in the case of future iSims, will no longer be needed because it is already present in the central hardware of the smartphone, with a certain reduction both in terms of costs and space on the terminal, to be able to dedicate to something else.
According to analysis agency Kaleido Intelligence, integrated SIMs are expected to be used in over 300 million handsets by 2027. Qualcomm notes that iSIM technology is fully compliant with the GSMA Remote Sim Provisioning standard, which allows users to activate services and subscriptions remotely, hypothetically even from your computer, simply by choosing your preferred supplier and offers.
The Snapdragon Gen 2 could be present in the first top-of-the-range smartphones of 2024 even if a complete implementation could be there in at least a couple of years, that is, when iSim support will also arrive on cheaper platforms and mid-range phones.
