Rumbling Surfaces from European Telcos over Apple SIM
On October 17 we posted a report titled "While the New Apple SIM didn't get any Coverage during Yesterday's Event, CNBC sees it as a Knockout Feature." Apple downplayed this feature knowing it would cause some ripples from their foreign telcos partners. Today we've learnt that in Europe, where consumers can order the new iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3 from Apple's online stores, only one carrier—EE—has signed up to offer its services to Apple's universal SIM. That's one operator out of dozens of carriers. Though in context, Apple has said that their new SIM is only available in the US and UK.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple's spokeswoman stated that the new Apple SIM is only currently available in the U.S. and U.K. She added that she had no information about future carrier partnerships, which Apple says is 'subject to change.'
Though in the U.K, Vodafone, the world's second-largest wireless group after China Mobile, says it will be selling the iPad Air 2 with its own SIM cards and data plans. A Vodafone spokesperson said the company is working with both industry and the GSMA, an association of mobile operators, to develop 'global standards' for 'interoperable SIMs.'"
Now we can see why Apple downplayed this feature when they launched the new iPad Air 2. The new Apple SIM is good for consumers but not necessarily good for the networks.
I rather doubt that this will be the last word that we hear on this matter from foreign telcos. Currently, Orange in France is already citing "security" as a reason for not wanting to adopt the new Apple SIM. It would seem that France is playing into the anti-US anti-NSA spying sentiment which is rather high in France at the moment to justify their decision to now support the Apple SIM. For more on this read the WSJ report.
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