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back to article GSMA: There are more mobile connections than people... but who's hogging them all?

By the end of the year there will be more mobile phone connections than people on the planet, although they mostly belong to the richer part of the planet – a whopping half the world’s population doesn’t have connectivity. But at present, the system simply identifies accounts rather than their users. Research by the mobile …

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  1. wowfood

    SPAM farms?

    Well there was an article on a SPAM sim farm being shut down

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/27/sms_spam_raid/

    That's one farm of many, so I imagine all the farms combined would provide a decent chunk of sims (even if this singular spam farm is only a few hundred.)

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  2. Alan Bourke

    Monitored house alarms.

    They all have a little simmy wim.

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    1. Eddy Ito
      Reply Icon

      Re: Monitored house alarms.

      Many cars also have a cellular connection whether it's GM's OnStar, BMW's Assist, MB's mbrace, etc. It won't be long before things like eCall become mandatory in most locales.

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    2. Crazy Operations Guy
      Reply Icon

      Re: Monitored house alarms.

      SIMs are also in traffic lights, environmental sensors, power control systems, emergency vehicles, buses, Telco roadside boxes, etc. You also have this Internet-of-Things fad that is taking a lot of SIM cards as well. You also have GSM-to-Serial port adapters for managing remote networking devices.

      And this is just what I've seen today, there are a lot more applications.

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      1. IglooDude
        Reply Icon

        Re: Monitored house alarms.

        Yes, I can point to a million SIMs (sorry, a listing of the MSISDNs won't fit in the comments block) that don't have a single user associated with them. I've seen a lot of clever people figuring out new and interesting uses for cellular data connectivity and hardly any of it involves a meatbag on the mobile end.

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  3. msknight

    Perhaps if they employed a litte more comnjoined thought

    I curently have two active UK sims (one for work and one for personal) and am about to supliment that with a German PAYG on a third mobile so that I can use the unlimited data bundles while in Europe. That will make one person with three active SIMs. (and three phones which will all be going, "Mamma, Mamma," come feeding time at the charger-zoo.)

    If they need to cut down on these things, then the industry needs to become a little bit more intelligent with how they do things. I mean, with the market the way it is at the moment, what else do they expect?

    (in case you're wondering, one is a works iPhone which doesn't do dual SIM, my personal preference is the Jolla and the third is an android that I'm using for SatNav ... so dual simming isn't realistic)

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    1. Intractable Potsherd
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      Re: Perhaps if they employed a litte more comnjoined thought

      Yep - I have four (or maybe five) SIMs in different phones - my main Android, my Jolla, and two or three old phones in the car which I keep for emergencies or to give to rally marshals to call me if an incident occurs. My wife has two or three as well.

      Edit: Oh, and I forgot the SIM in my camera.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Its the "Internet of Things"

    I've always suspected my refrigerator is SMS messaging other refrigerators. "OMG! The crap this guy buys! Leftover pizza every week, and the month-old liverwurst! Then he buys lite beer? Like that's going to help..."

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  5. ForthIsNotDead

    Meh.

    I lost my beloved Samsung SIII last Thursday in Stavanger, Norway.

    It's Tuesday and I haven't missed it at all.

    I'm seriously thinking of getting my old (and pristine) Nokia 6310i (all hail) out and going all retro!

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    1. dogged
      Reply Icon

      Re: Meh.

      Best phone ever made. But I prefer my V3i because it's a tank.

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    2. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Meh.

      All hail the Nokia 6310i!!

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sims

    3 phones, a laptop & arduino here and they're the ones I use.

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  7. jb99

    Well I have my current Three contract, an old vodafone phone switched to PAYG which I hardly use. Also I have an old kindle that has a sim in, and an old satnav that seems to have one in too although I pay for neither directly.

    So thats 4 for me.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More than my fair share

    I've got three phone SIMs and one data-SIM in daily use. Another two data-only SIMs in occasional/backup use, and another couple of rarely-used but still-alive PAYG phone SIMs. Across three networks (backup/redundancy/coverage).

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  9. Scroticus Canis

    In rural Africa...

    In many rural African villages (and SA townships/squatter camps) there will be an enterprising person who has a shipping container set up with several mobile phones (chained down natch) which are rented out per call, as public wired phones just don't exist or where vandalised for the copper wires. They also take messages for the local populace who then make return calls. You would be surprised at just how busy they can get.

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  10. Christian Berger

    Well how do you deactivate a SIM?

    I mean seriously, particularly with Pay as you go plans there is little reason to actually "deactivate" your SIM.

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    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
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      Re: Well how do you deactivate a SIM?

      with a hammer?

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  11. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Trillions of customers, we have

    It's common in many businesses, not just phones, to make true account deactivation nearly impossible. It artificially inflates customer numbers and makes the business look better than it is.

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