News
Giesecke & Devrient Supplying TeliaSonera with 1-Gigabyte SIM Cards
TeliaSonera, the leading telecommunications operator in the Nordic and Baltic states, has commissioned Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), the world's second largest manufacturer of smart cards, to provide it with SIM cards featuring a storage capacity of over one gigabyte (GB) for preliminary trials. The 1 GB SIM card from G&D, dubbed GalaxSIM,runs on a corresponding chip platform from Samsung. The trial will be conducted on a P3600 personal digital assistant (PDA) from HTC.
The GalaxSIM card uses the MMC interface of the P3600 PDA from HTC for
speedy communication between card and phone. Although the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) agreed on USB as the standard
for a high-speed protocol in November 2006, there are presently still no
USB-enabled cell phones available on the market. For that reason,
TeliaSonera opted to go with the MMC interface, which is ready for use now,
for testing and transition purposes. For later migration to USB standards,
G&D already offers USB-enabled GalaxSIM cards.
Test cards with phone book synchronization and pocket PC games
The GalaxSIM being used for the TeliaSonera pilot trials comes with a
variety of information and applications incorporated into its high density
NAND flash memory: graphics and logos, settings files for modifying network
parameters, a selection of pocket computer games, and a phone boo
application produced by G&D, called GalaxSIM Sync, which enables automatic
backup of phone book entries on the SIM card. GalaxSIM Sync immediately
recognizes new entries to the cell phone and saves them as backup on the
SIM card in the typical VCard format, thereby allowing the entries to be
easily and completely transferred from the card to a new phone whenever the
owner changes handsets.
To us, the SIM card represents an important link to our wireless
customers. By being the first operator in the Nordic and Baltic states in
trialling the multimedia SIM card at this early stage we continue in our
ambition to provide our customers with simplicity and easy to use
services, says Lars Klasson, Head of Products & Production in Business
Area Mobility Services in TeliaSonera AB.
About Giesecke & Devrient:
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is a technology leader in the field of smart
cards, providing smart card based solutions for telecommunications,
electronic payment, health care, ID, transportation, and IT security (PKI).
G&D is also a leading producer of banknotes and security documents and is
dominant in the field of currency automation. Based in Munich, Germany, the
G&D group has subsidiaries and joint ventures around the world. In fiscal
2005, the Group employed some 7,500 people and generated revenue of 1.24
billion. For more information, please visit our Web site at
www.gi-de.com/press.
Contact:
Giesecke & Devrient GmbH
Vera Schuh, Press Manager
Prinzregentenstrasse 159, 81607 Munich, Germany
Tel.: +49-89-4119-2985, Telefax: -2020
E-mail: vera.schuh@gi-de.com