Sagem Orga shows off pricey SIMfi prototype at MWC
By Chris Ziegler 
posted February 18th 2010 3:26PM
posted February 18th 2010 3:26PM
Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take any pictures of the actual SIMfi; this is just a dummy pictured above, but our demo guy took off the battery cover of his phone and we were shocked to find that the real thing looks no different from any other SIM (no, seriously). We guess that makes sense since it has to fit into a standard SIM slot, but it's rocket science how they managed to fit all that circuitry into a board that tiny -- in fact, we were shown an x-ray view of the card, and the number of chips, resistors, and miscellaneous pieces of technology in there is nothing short of mind-bending. It's hard to say when (or if) we'll see these on carriers around the world, but it's going to be a little while -- Sagem Orga tells us the prototypes cost a stout €5,000 (about $6,800) each.
For the price of that little piece of plastic, you can buy a phone with wifi 100 times over.
@Caprice Dates That's actually pretty cheap for a prototype.
I'm just your above average consumer but I wouldn't know anything of pricing for prototypes. I don't see the sense of jampacking wifi into something that small unless the target device doesn't support wifi already.
@Caprice Dates
You can also buy a decent used car... What is your point?
My point is you are being an ass for asking. Used car, smh.
@Caprice Dates Sorry to hijack, but it seems like most people are missing the fact that this is a WiFi access point broadcasting the SIM's data connection, not a WiFi adapter the phone itself. At least that's what I'm getting from the article saying "the card is currently throwing out a hotspot cloud."
I love that they're thinking is so forward, however, I am reminded of that NYTimes by article the former VP of one of Microsoft's division where the company is thinking too far ahead of technology.
For the value of a sim card to be reasonably expressed as a percentage of the device's cost nonetheless out value said device is absurd -- $6,800 for a sim card is just absurd.
@derX Don't be absurd. The prototype was $6,800. That's not what MSRP will be.
Awesome! Who couldn't use one of these? I'd be plenty happy with a five meter range and save on battery life.
Sure the prototype is costly, as are all prototypes, but that will drop dramatically when mass production begins.
@VAGRANT
Prototype cost is meaningless -- you cannot even begin to estimate the real per-unit cost of this in mass production. Engadget should know this and clearly state this, since not all readers are product development engineers who know how to interpret that prototype cost number (which by the way is a very reasonable price assuming they made a half dozen or dozen protos for that lot price).
This is a potentially great solution. 1 meter range and you'd get personal or small-conference room access to a dumbphone's 3G connection without all the hassles of bluetooth profile setup.
All phones will have this or something similar within 5 years. Wi-Fi won't be a café staple but a global staple. People will rob each others connections till the cows come home.
so, what would be the advantage of putting the wifi in the SIM? the phone would still need to support it, and it seems that putting the wifi likely under the battery or somewhere else in the bowels of the phone would hurt reception?
@skyman375 Nope, phone doesn't have to support it! That's the magic.
@Chris Ziegler So we'd have to plug it into some USB dongle to configure it? I understand the Eye-Fi SD cards but this doesn't quite speak to me.
@auxonic The SIM interface standard allows for some user-accessible communication between the phone and the card that could presumably be used to configure SSIDs, passwords, and so on. We don't have the specifics on how this would look in production, though.
@Chris Ziegler
auxonic is making a similar question in another tree, and I understand that OS on app processor can talk to SIM, but how can a SIM make data connection without support from phone's OS? wouldn't it mess up baseband?
Sounds cool.. but my question is how they get the data back to the SIM? Does the spec allow the card to directly access the radio? I've never heard of peripherals in the SIM before.. besides, how would we configure it?
OK, so how many posts are there going to be of people complaining that this costs a ton of money?
Obviously people have no clue what the difference is between prototypes and actual mass-produced consumer items.
What flavor of WiFi was it? g or n?
@arnavdesai Given that its sharing a cell data connection even b would be more than enough for most cell networks. However, sticking g in there would certainly be advised to future proof it.
What is the cost of a standard wifi chip and a regular sim card vs this new idea of combining them?
Also what would I use this new sim card for?
@sjankech
Imagine the possibilities if they start doing it with other protocols... You could just get a new sim-card to make your phone do 4/5g...
Sprint Overdrive is sounding like a much better option till the MSRP of this thing is announce if/when it hits the market.
Isn't this just a SIM card version of Eyefi?
Actually, the best part of the hardware stays in hyperspace - it's not only mind-bending, it's even bending space & time.
That is ridiculous.
Amazing.
Somebody alert this guy: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tamper.html or the guy from the Infineon TMP hack article.
This technology is awesome...now if only someone could put this tech into a microSIM...then once I have that in my iPad...free Wifi for everyone... yes?
the chip uses your available service (either 3g, wifi, etc etc and re broadcast it out as a wifi "cloud" for i think i heard 10 users so that u dont have to tether. think mifi and cell in one. however unless a cell service is actually on board with such an item u would have to clone a sim chip and hope att or whomever doesnt switch to the new chips coming out. great idea... but will never materialize
I guess I could see the use of this technology...but what would interest me more would be the ability to built the network technology into the SIM. No more handsets built for Verizon or AT&T or Sprint. Buy a choice handset and insert an AT&T SIM and you're on the AT&T network. Pull the AT&T SIM and let a buddy push his Verizon SIM into the phone to use it for his account, then swap back to yours when done. It would take some radio-foo, and the carriers would need to standardize across the board, but to turn the phone into a commodity for use with any carrier...there's the real freedom.
Isn't the transfer speed on the sim maybe a bottleneck?