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Popular Smart Card Tutorial By Dr. David Everett
PDF - 3.5Mb / 163 pages

By Pauline Jacqueline Aloysius, Gemplus

Nowadays the built-in infrastructure, demands smart card in everyone's hands to use everywhere for everything. The SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), which was once only the security module fitted in a GSM mobile phone, now acts as the phone's brain as well as the interface to Internet connectivity. This operation of the SIM is achieved by the SIM Application Toolkit (STK), which provides mechanisms for mobile electronic commerce applications and value added services on the SIM to interact with external world.

Usually the terminal handsets are master, while the SIM is the slave, but with STK design specification the ME & SIM works in client-server mode, where the STK drives the mobile phone by issuing commands ranging from setting up & displaying menus to getting user inputs for sending and receiving SMS messages.

This SIM Application Toolkit has been agreed and incorporated in the GSM standard as GSM 11.14, titled as <Specification of the SIM Application Toolkit for the Subscriber Identity Module - Mobile Equipment (SIM - ME) Interface>.

A few years ago, the memory capacity of smart cards was enough to hold basic STK applications but now due to the demand for high capacity applications, the smart card manufacturers move towards mass production of 32K cards and high expensive 64K and 128K cards have also come into the market.

Why this move? Is it just to display menu and send SMS? Or is it the SIM card wants to offer a multi-application framework to the end-users. Yes, the smart move is to provide a multifunction capability platform for hosting full-fledged wide range of applications on the smart card.

One such application is to browse Internet with the use of Wireless Internet Browser (WIB) through STK mechanisms from even "non-smart" mobile phones. The installation of this micro-browser WIB on the SIM card needs a 32K memory capacity card to store it in the form of executable application.

According to SmartTrust, the WIB Applications appear as STK menu items on the mobile terminal, and typically point to locally stored WML application or URL address on the Internet. The Wireless Internet Browser (WIB) access the URL on the server to retrieve information and receives compressed web pages from the server and converts the byte coded WML decks to SIM Toolkit commands as per the standard defined for client/server communication protocol.

Moreover the WML decks which are stored locally on the SIM can be updated Over-The-Air, which makes possible for the operators to add new services as and when there is demand from the market thus enabling the mobile operator to have control of the value added services.

The STK supported SIM browser utilizes the existing technology and infrastructure enabling the application developers to develop and extend WIB functionality for new applications on SIM card. This combination of WIB with STK mechanisms gives the flexibility of updating & altering the SIM with new services, which can be downloaded over the air.

Though the implementation of WIB requires the smart card manufacturers and operators to migrate to high memory capacity cards, it turns out to be an advantage for a subscriber who enjoys the benefits from WIB, by merely purchasing a new SIM card, for a fraction of the cost of new mobile equipment.

Further to note is that, the SIM Browser implementation based on SmartTrust WIB technology shows 300% growth in mobile industry, which clearly justifies not to wait but to go for it.

Thus the future of WIB with STK is well entrenched & it is forecasted to retain its market as a value added service, facilitating the service providers to deliver customized content to their subscribers.