Turnkey solution looks set to make roaming simplicity itself

IN a hi-tech world defined by words like “seamless” and “streamlined”, it is sometimes maddening to find ourselves still hamstrung by clunky old solutions. Yes, identity booklets are giving way to smart cards, and credit cards are just beginning to make space for digital mobile wallets, but the physical passport and plastic credit card still dominate.

In communications, the sim card has been the foundation stone, or rather chip, of the mobile device for more than two decades.

It has long been technically possible to do away with the sim altogether, but the idea is anathema to mobile network operators, which depend heavily on locking in customers via that branded chip.

The tyranny of the sim is especially harsh on travellers, who must find local providers of prepaid sim cards if they want to avoid absurd roaming rates.

About 18 months ago, Apple tried to address the issue with the Apple sim, a pre-installed sim card for iPads, allowing users to switch between four US providers and two in the UK without having to change sims. One of these, GigSky, also provides international data plans but, with prices typically starting at $10 (about R156) for 40MB of data — almost R4 per megabyte — it makes even less sense than ad hoc mobile data prices in South Africa.

A Canadian company founded four years ago by South Africans, KnowRoaming, came up with a workaround: the Global SIM Sticker, which is stuck to a regular sim card to turn it into a roaming card. In effect, it gives the sim an alias of a major operator in almost every country in the world.

This means data rates typically come down to between US10c and US15c per megabyte, and in around 70 countries, an unlimited data package is available for $7.99 a day.

That sounds like a silver bullet for travellers, but the solution is hamstrung both by the sticker and the need to fix it to the sim card with a special applicator. That means an instruction manual, potential for damage, and added complexity.

But now, KnowRoaming is bringing a product to market that makes the sim card almost redundant. At the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, it unveiled the Software SIM, a virtual equivalent of a sim card that resides entirely in the phone software.

Aside from the engineering required, it has been made possible by KnowRoaming buying a small mobile network operator in the US, giving it access to all the global interconnection facilities available to conventional carriers. And it struck a deal with manufacturer Alcatel to adjust the software embedded on its phones to support the Software SIM.

“We now have our own core network, a commercial relationship with all other networks, a management platform, and a delivery mechanism that requires no hardware modification,” says company founder and CEO Greg Gundelfinger.

This means, he says, that it is both “an end-to-end solution for network connectivity globally” and a platform to deliver sim cards to any phone in the world. It needs only the co-operation of manufacturers to update the software built into the phone.

He won’t call the technology behind the Software SIM revolutionary, as variations on the theme have offered one or other element, but none have been able to produce a turnkey solution before.

For budget-conscious travellers, that is revolution enough.

Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter @art2gee and YouTube at http://bit.ly/GGadgets