
Verizon, theĀ Telecommunications conglomerateĀ Ā is interested inĀ the use of blockchain technology to lay emphasis on the dynamic creation of virtual SIM cards.
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A patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the concept was granted the company on Sept. 10, in this invention, could do away with pre-inserted, branded physical SIM cards.
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TheĀ innovation wants to deal with virtual Sim as against the physical Sim card. TheĀ patent describes how a physical SIM card can be replaced by a software equivalent āĀ a virtual SIM (vSIM)Ā which is more secured with blockchain-based encryption.
Ultimately, the Sim will be in like software in the phone, a device on the mobile network would create a user account for storing one or more vSIMs.
Then there will be a selection of network services the account will work with.Ā
A blockchain record will be created by the network device including a vSIM certificate for the network services and a number that uniquely identifies all users of a cellphone network known as anĀ International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI).
TheĀ vSIM certificateĀ is then linked to the user account and can be activated on a clientās mobile device.
Thus, participating nodes on the ādistributed consensus networkā will then maintain a list of records that Verizon calls a vSIM blockchain. As soon as this is properly done, there wont be any form of malicous tampering as it would be secured by storingĀ time-stamped transactions in cryptographically secured blocks.Ā
According to the patent ā Verizon", records on theĀ vSIM blockchainĀ would be stored for efficiency and to ensure that blocks are received without beingĀ Ā unaltered or damaged in a hash tree structure.
Verizon stated that, the vSIM can be assigned with any of theĀ multiple mobile devices linked to the user account and transferred between the devices. Saying It could as well be temporarily assigned to other users too.
Backing it all up would be a vSIM platform using a number of application programming interfaces (APIs).
According to the patent:
āIt then means the vSim can be assigned to new users and on the other hand redirected to another userĀ and users can accept new vSIM certificates into a user account, transfer a vSIM among client devices associated with the user account, or deliver a vSIM certificate to another user.ā
Summarily, by using the same system, a company could purchase a number of vSIMs, assign them to its staff as the choose and later onĀ re-assign them to other employees in same system.
Filament, a firm working on blockchain hardware for the internet of things had previously received $15m funding from Verizon.
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Credit: Daniel Palmer
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