Smaller SIM Card Standard Could Be Ready Next Year
Following on Apple"s proposed standard for smaller SIM cards, a German company has proposed its own standard, called a nano-SIM. Giesecke & Devrient, the company that developed the world"s first SIM card, has proposed a "nano-SIM", a card one-third smaller and 15 percent thinner than the current smallest card, the Micro-SIM, that"s used in the iPhone 4 and 4S and both generations of 3G iPad. G&D submitted its design to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, or ETSI, the standards organization behind the three standard sizes of SIM cards, illustrated above. ETSI hopes to have the new nano-SIM format should be standardized by the end of this year, and an adapter will exist to make the new SIM backwards-compatible with older devices. (Image via Flickr/William Hook)