UICC and ISIM (IMS SIM)

I have mentioned before that UICC is the physical card and 2G SIM/USIM/ISIM are applications on the UICC card. The IMS SIM holds data provided by the IMS Operator, generally the same operator that would provide USIM services that would allow to camp on the 3G or LTE network.

Private User Identity: This identifies the user uniquely with the IMS operator and is used when the user registers with the IMS network. This is used by the operator to check the subscription and which services the user can avail of.

Public User Identity: A user can have multiple public identities that can be used for different services. To avail a particular service, user has to register with the particular public identity that has been allowed for that service.

Security Keys: Security keys are used for authentication to the IMS Network.

Home Network Domain Name: This is the name of the entry point that the user uses to register. This makes sure that a users request is sent to the Home Network.

Access Rule Reference: This is used to store information about which personal identification number needs verification for accessing a particular application

Address of P-CSCF: If it is not possible do dynamically find the Proxy-Call Session Control Function then this address is helpful

Administrative Data: Some of this could be operator specific proprietary information

Vuforia™: Qualcomm's Augmented Reality (AR) Platform

As I mentioned yesterday, while some people think that Augmented Reality is losing its charm, Qualcomm certainly thinks that things are looking up for AR and it can only get better. They have branded their AR platform as Vuforia. A recent presentation from Cambridge Wireless event is embedded below:

Using AR Apps to Change How We Shop, Learn, Play & Interact

View more presentations from Zahid Ghadialy

There are some interesting video's on Augmented Reality using the Vuforia platform on Youtube. Some of them as follows:












All presentations from the CW event are available here.

Augmented Reality on the 'Peak of Inflated Expectations'

In a recent event in Cambridge Wireless, one of the topics of discussion was where does 'Augmented Reality' sit on the Peak of Inflated Expectations. While one of the speaker thought that it was on the Peak going towards Trough, most of the others thought that it had already passed the trough and is now going up.

Some six months back I put a picture up from the Gartner Hype Cycle that showed that the Augmented Reality is at the peak going towards the trough.

What do you think? Any opinions?

Interesting interview by Small Cell Forum's Andy Germano from MWC 2012

Via Ubiquisys blog.

6 ways NFC will change your world

Orange Business Services - 6 ways NFC will change your world

View more presentations from Orange Business Services

Will it? What do you think?

Operator Services Roadmap

Problems with 800MHz in UK and Spectrum to be auctioned

Even though 800MHz provides far better coverage than 2.1GHz (as shown above), it is going to be difficult to rollout LTE on 800MHz in the short term. The main reason being that there are quite a few other devices that use the frequencies or the frequencies neighbouring the 800MHz band and the interference may stop them working. A chart of the users is shown below.

It would be interesting to see when the rollouts in 800MHz would happen.

According to Ofcom, the following spectrum will be available in the UK:


• 250MHz of spectrum:
    • 2x30MHz paired at 800MHz
    • 2x70MHz paired at 2.6GHz
    • 50MHz unpaired at 2.6GHz
• (Also 2x15MHz of 1800MHz spectrum to be divested by EE)
• Starts to become available from Jan 2013
    • 800MHz expected to be available across whole of the UK by end of 2013
    • 2.6GHz across majority of UK by end of 2013 with remaining areas asap thereafter

All these topics were recently covered in a Cambridge Wireless event on Mobile Broadband SIG: Mobile Broadband in Rural Areas. The presentations are available here to view and download.

Dilbert Humour: Too many technologies to cope with!

Source: Dilbert.

'Blue Tick' for better RF performance

Last year I blogged about 'Antennagate'. From what I hear, iPhone 4S has left this problem far behind and have a much better RF performance than other rivals.

The Australian operator Telstra operates a scheme where it gives a 'blue tick' to all mobiles that have superior RF performance than other average mobiles.

The following is an interesting comment from their Crowdsupport site:


Telstra offers three classes of coverage, A B and C.


C Class coverage is Blue Tick coverage. These phones are designed in such a way that they will outperform other phones in coverage. That is ,they will hold onto a signal further than B or A class phones


Most smartphones due to the way they are manufactures are B class, because of their thinness and materials (such as glass and plastic)


The Atrix and Defy are Blue Tick because the plastic chassis that houses the antenna stops your hand from attenuating the signal.


The iPhone 4S is Blue Tick because the dual antenna design intelligently switches antennas if one gets attenuated.


Blue Tick phones do not assist with high traffic areas. They only assist users in low coverage areas. So a phone in the Melbourne CBD would behave much like any other Telstra phone. Whereas a Blue Tick phone out in rural areas would have better signal coverage than a B or A class phone.


Telstra empirically tests all it's phones because we reach more of the population and many rural people rely on mobile phones with each passing year.


It may be a good idea that operators in other countries start supporting a similar scheme so users who get very little reception in their houses or places of work can get a phone with better RF capabilities.

Any similar schemes operating in other countries?

Heterogeneous network deployments in LTE: The soft-cell approach

Heterogeneous network deployments in LTE

View more documents from Zahid Ghadialy

Available to download from here.