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With the surge in mobile pentration, smart card maker Gemplus--which counts handset SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards among its key offerings--must be smiling its way to the bank. To date, the French company has sold 5 billion smart cards worldwide, with over 650 million of them shipped last year. With the rapid deployment of third-generation (3G) mobile networks around the globe, the company sees an even greater potential for its smart card products.
Philippe Vallée, Gemplus' executive vice president of telecom business unit, tells CNETAsia how SIM cards can help mobile operators provide better customer service and better tailor their services to suit individual users.
He also talks about how 3G SIM cards can help prevent piracy issues that are commony associated with the Internet, from hitting the mobile platform.
What do you think is the killer app for smart cards? How can we make it a bigger success?
We need to find an application that can fit everybody. The more we progress, the more we look at our customers, the more we need to talk about marketing and segmentation. We need to identify different customer segments, whether you're talking about teenagers, professionals, residential or home users, road warriors and so on.
The objective is to look at what makes the best combination (of offerings), like location-based services, phone book management, e-mail or content about stocks, that should be packaged to fit this (customer) segment or that segment. It's becoming really a question of understanding the customer and consumer behavior.
But we all know that it's tough trying to predict what a customer wants. How do you think we can make this easier?
Here's where I can touch on the role of the SIM card. Gemplus offers a combination of software which you can put on the (over-the-air) network and on the client (user) platform. Together they allow you to upgrade content of the SIM and the phone, so operators can be flexible with the card and their understanding of their installed base. Every time a new feature comes up or something needs to be changed, they can do the upgrade without having to recall their subscribers at the point of sales.
So you're actually doing the tweaking at the network end rather than on the client (user) side?
Yes. For example, if you look at 3G, it's a technology which requires a lot of setting on the phone. You need to configure the Web browser, where you're going to fetch the data, set the address of the main Web site or portal, and so on. Today, a 3G phone requires about 20 to 25 different settings. If you change, for some reason, some of the settings, perhaps because you're upgrading the network, what we're proposing today is the possibility of putting all these settings onto the SIM.
Subscribers don't go to their phone manufacturer if they have a problem, they call their mobile operator. And when they do, the operator's helpdesk agent fields questions and asks for the model of the user's phone, the configurations on his phone, and so on. Now, consider if you have the ability as a mobile operator, to retrieve information from your customer's SIM card such as the complete list of configurations that's used on the phone. And consider if you have the ability to identify what's wrong with the phone and update it over-the-air, you'll be able to gain a lot in terms of customer care and provide a better level of service. This will require a combination of SIM card, content, network connectivity and so on. But it is already a reality…in Europe today, we've installed software which allows our operator customers to update things over-the-air. So as an operator, you can take the 'hand' of the phone and instantly show the user where to go to look for information, what and how to activate services, just like what you can do now on your computer.
So you're saying the software, when downloaded on the operator's network, can remotely help mobile phone users?
Yes, this will help end-users get the right level of service, depending on what he has paid for. One of the main issues for all operators since day one is getting customers to understand how to activate their services. And if you can help them by having the right level of connectivity and the right level of remote maintenance, then it improves a lot the ease-of-use. As an end-user, this is seamless and transparent. He doesn't have to do anything, whichever country he's in. Through the SIM, operators can recognize the user, his usage preferences and push the necessary information to him wherever he is.
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