One of the first things I do when I travel (Not in the U.S.!) is wander over to the nearest
tabac /
tabacchio /
mobile store /
whatever and buy a local SIM. My Nexus Prime works in pretty much all countries out there (the good news), but roaming rates are
insane the world over (the bad news). Consequently, a simple 10
Euro /
Pound /
whatever SIM gives me enough data to tide me through the trip.
Note: I said data. Thats because most everything I do with the phone consists of Maps / Camera / Email,
and quite possibly in that order.
I've built up quite a handy collection of SIMs, and as long as I've been to said country recently, its all good - I can even top up online. But, if I haven't been for a while, I have to repeat the
SIM Song And Dance, which invariably involves some combination of
passport /
address /
code fiscale /
whatever and other such idiocies. Not even remotely insurmountable, but still Just Enough Friction to be annoying.
You would think that it would be a lot easier to associate a SIM with a person. I mean, why can't they just use my
existing T-Mobile SIM from the U.S., and just register it on their network? Pretty much
every phone every made has an option where you can "Pick Your Carrier", which should solve all these issues, right?
Turns out, it is
really not that simple. Carriers
pre-register their SIMs, i.e., deep in the guts of their incredibly complicated - and quite possibly antiquated - provisioning system, there is a list of
every SIM that is "official", and it can only be updated through some Very Special Processes that involves high magic, incantations, and pointy (non-Pope) hats.
This is the point at which it turns out that AT&T might actually be able to help. (Wow. Did you ever think you'd hear anybody say that?).
They've got a new global platform in play, which allows carriers to do exactly that, i.e., have
one SIM that can be registered across multiple carriers. Mind you, when I say
platform, I mean
Something that the carriers use deep in the guts of their data centers. In short, if the uptake is high enough, the next time I walk into an Orange store in France to get a local data plan for the next 5 days (10
Euro) they'll just grab the number of my existing SIM, twiddle a few bits, and I'll be done. No fuss, no muss.
Mind you, I do see tremendous room for consumer hell here. Imagine the fun when I do the above,
and then don't switch my carrier to Orange. The next thing I know, I've got a $5K roaming bill from AT&T. Which, quite possibly is something that they've already thought about, and are chuckling about :-)
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