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The benefits of a dual-SIM phone

Telestial News

February 16, 2015

The benefits of a dual-SIM phone

There’s a familiar trend for technological advances. Once an initial product is created, designers always try to ensure that subsequent iterations of that product are tighter, sleeker, more efficiently put together. Smaller, in other words. The first computers, for example, could have comfortably housed a family of four. Now, they’re small enough to fit inside a mouse. The first mobile phones were chunky, clunky pieces of kit that required long antennae. Now they fit comfortably into your pocket. And while the trend for ‘smaller and smaller’ continues (as with the burgeoning wearables market), most modern smartphones have stopped shrinking, and are in fact growing again. The latest iPhone, for example, is the company’s biggest to date.

The irony is that the smartphones are once again growing in size because we’ve made all the other stuff so much smaller. There’s no point in your phone being capable of high-definition video playback if the screen is too small for you to appreciate it. So while the handset may be skinnier (perhaps a little too thin at times), the screen size seems to be on the increase. This puts the humble SIM card in an awkward position. After all, it was because there was no room for a standard SIM that the Micro and eventually the Nano SIM were invented. Now, many modern smartphones have some extra space, enough for a second SIM slot.

A dual-SIM handset makes a lot of sense, for a number of reasons. All our phones have always been dual-SIM for the extra flexibility that it offers travelers. There’s space for your Telestial SIM and your regular SIM, so that any calls you get come straight through to you no matter which number you’ve given out. However, there are many other reasons for the sudden popularity of dual-SIM phones, as indicated in this report from OpenSignal.com. One of the strangest findings is that the sudden upswing in dual-SIM’s popularity is wholly unexpected: “What is clear is that dual SIM devices are a significant part of the mobile ecosystem, and despite building signal apps for years: this was news to us.

As can be seen from the top 20 dual-SIM using countries, signal strength is clearly an issue. In developing nations particularly, differing regions may still be serviced by different operators, and making calls to competitor companies could essentially mean roaming charges, only without the roaming. If you’re unable to make a call on one service, having another option right there in your handset already makes a great deal of sense.

Of course, why stop at just two SIMs? Why not three? Or four?