Mpricial
Topics: 5G, Network, Network Tech
Transcript Excerpt
The evolution of SIMs within a mobile network is worth considering when looking at SIM cards, or subscriber identity module cards, but it all began with the introduction of GSM, or the worldwide system for mobile communications. Now GSM made the decision to actually take the device and have a separate subscription on a SIM card. The mobile station is made up of two components: the mobile equipment, which is the actual device, such as the keypad, display, battery, radio, etc.; and the SIM card, which is the subscriber identity module. It’s important to note that although the term SIM card is the most common, people will also hear the phrase usim, or universal SIM, later. Let’s discuss the differences between both terms later. However, if people look at the specifics that actually correspond to the original GSM terminology, one can see that it is also currently used to categorize all SIM cards within the mobile network. When people talk about introducing 3G, 4G, and 5G systems, people use the term SIM universal subscriber identification module, but people probably still refer to it as a SIM card. It was just mentioned the term SIM subscriber identity module, which is applicable to 2G systems. It was first launched in 3G, and from there, people just continued to develop it to include 4G and 5G features. It’s also important to note that they made it backward compatible, so it also supports 2G. The next acronym on the list is the isim notice there is a capitalized for IMS IP multimedia subsystem, so this is with respect to things like voice over LTE and that’s applicable to 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G systems but not as common. For example, if people buy a phone and want to go onto a GSM network usim can facilitate now there is other terminology. It’s important to note that using an iSIM and a SIM on the same SIM card can affect the real SIM card; therefore, these are more like applications than the physical card itself. When speaking of SIM cards, the eSIM is the most recent development, if they will. Therefore, when considering the embedded SIM card here, which is specifically applicable to 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G, the eSIM will have SIM capabilities while the uSIM, the iSIM, and the IMS SIM are more like applications. The concept is that one may be on either a conventional SIM card or an eSIM. The newest one is called the iSIM, although it only has a minor connection to integrated SIM, thus this is another step away from a physical chip, as in any SIM, or a physical card. As a standard SIM card, we may add applications to it to represent a 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G deployment in this instance. As you can see, there are a lot of words used currently, but they are all simulators in general. The difference is in their physical characteristics and how they affect the network.
