The USIM is telecom application inside a UICC.<\/p>\n
UICC is a tiny\u00a0 computer, common to all smart cards: telecom, banking, \u2026<\/p>\n
The interface is a serial link, with only one pin for both Tx and Rx, so it is half duplex.<\/p>\n
To interface UICC with a computer, a USB\/serial converter is the current solution. It could be two flavors: direct dialog over the serial link or a protocol called PC\/SC.<\/p>\n
As 3GPP describes the actual dialog (no PC\/SC encapsulation). We choose to use this direct interface between our SW ans the UICC (see our commercial page about SIM cards readers).<\/p>\n
In our reader, the converter is a Prolific PL2303 chip. So, the car reader is seen as a serial\/USB converter in Linux (or other OS). It doesn\u2019t require any additional driver.<\/p>\n
Opening the serial link connects us directly to the UICC Tx\/Rx pin. By this connection, we can send\/receive data to a UICC card.<\/p>\n
The dialog is master\/slave: the card only answer to requests.<\/p>\n
The requests are called \u201cAPDU\u201d, see wikipedia doc<\/a><\/p>\n The APDU for telecom application are described in ETSI and 3GPP standards.<\/p>\n Most dialogs implements a \u201cfile system\u201d concept: 3GPP defined UICC embedded files. The files are in directories as we do in computers.<\/p>\n The UICC file system specific concepts:<\/p>\n Some orders doesn\u2019t implement \u201cfile system\u201d design pattern: specific APDU calls, for example, 3GPP authentication.<\/p>\n A more complex UICC facility is to download applications in the card. These applications are written in a java (\u201cjavacard\u201d flavor). Java application are not useful for regular 4G subscription and authentication.<\/p>\n Power (or reset) the UICC. The card answer with a structured word called \u201cATR\u201d (answer to reset). This ATR tells us the card features and supplier identification. Nevertheless, 3GPP defines some parts as only examples, to free proprietary implementations, like a operator that would use his own algorithm instead of \u201cMilenage\u201d. Also, most suppliers have their own implementation for the operator provisioning parts (this is the case for our UICC).<\/p>\n The second order to the UICC will be to select a directory under the root directory.<\/p>\n GSM SIM, 3G\/4G USIM, IMS IMSI, \u2026 have their own directories.<\/p>\n Example: APDU=a0a40000023f00<\/p>\n The we have to read the card answer, it should be: 9f17, that 3GPP defined as the success answer in GSM 11.11<\/a> standardization document<\/p>\n All of this is simple, but there is two painful issues:<\/p>\n proprietary commands per supplier for card configuration<\/p>\n each file content encoding is specific, described in big documents:<\/p>\n From physical interface to root files (above telecom application): ETSI standard<\/a><\/p>\n Our application: USIM files are defined in: 3GPP standard<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is a UICC ? The USIM is telecom application inside a UICC. UICC is a tiny\u00a0 computer, common to all smart cards: telecom, banking, \u2026 The interface is a serial link, with only one pin for both Tx and Rx, so it is half duplex. To interface UICC with a computer, a USB\/serial converter … Continue reading “UICC tutorial”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-880","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":881,"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/880\/revisions\/881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/open-cells.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
Typical 4G smartphone example<\/h1>\n
\nThe commands subset used by regular mobile phones is implemented in a pure standard way by all card suppliers.<\/p>\n\n