Use 4 phone numbers in a single handset with Motorola's iSIM

Monday, 19 April 2010, 15:22 IST   |    2 Comments
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New Delhi: To help the cellphone users to use up to four phone numbers in a single handset, without even having to buy a multi-SIM one, the U.S. based Motorola is in talks with all Indian telecom service providers to launch iSIM. iSIM is a flexible wafer that can be attached to the original SIM. This allows the user to access three other numbers on the same handset. Talking to Business Standard, Subhendu Mohanty, Motorola (India) Country Head (Home & Networks Mobility) said, "We are in talks with all Indian players for our intelligent SIM (iSIM) application. We hope to strike a deal in the second quarter of this financial year." Explaining about iSIM, he said that it is based on a flexible wafer that can be attached to the subscriber's original SIM providing additional services that can be controlled via SIM tool kit (STK), allowing third-party developers to build applications and services. The users who will use IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), can switch between different phone numbers provisioned to different networks, or the same network, without changing SIMs. The company believes that IMSI is a unique, usually 15-digit, number associated with mobile users. It is stored in the SIM inside the phone and is sent by the phone to the network. According to Mohanty, the new application is expected to pick up very fast in Asian markets, since the trend of one person keeping two mobiles is quite popular here. The future of iSIM looks bright as according to research done by Strategy Analytics, dual-SIM phones would capture seven percent of the total mobile phone market by 2014.