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SIM Toolkit
Functional Description

The SIM Toolkit allows service providers to develop phone applications without modifying or installing software on the phone with the SIM toolkit application providing the user-interface for this functionality.

Qtopia provides only basic SIM toolkit functionality as the major part of the work to support SIM Toolkit is in the modem or vendor plug-in. There are no standard AT commands within the GSM specifications for SIM Toolkit and each modem has its own proprietary commands.

The SIM Toolkit provides features such as a display menu, display text and single character and string user input. Input may be numeric and the entered text may be echoed or hidden (as for password text). Play Tones are available for applications to use to indicate events such as call waiting, busy signal or errors etc.

See 3GPP TS 11.14

Features

Display menu

Displays a menu from which the user can choose an option. It is possible to select an item from the menu or press "Back" to move to the previous menu. Pressing "Back" at the main menu exits the application. This feature handles SET UP MENU (GSM TS 11.14, section 6.4.8) and SELECT ITEM (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.9).

Display text

Displays text to the user. The text can be displayed until dismissed by the user or for a short delay. This feature handles DISPLAY TEXT (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.1).

Get user input

The user can be prompted for input of the following types:

• Input of a single digit or character (GET INKEY, 3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.2).
• Input of a string of digits or characters (GET INPUT, 3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.3).

The entered text can be echoed or hidden as for password input.

Play tone

The SIM toolkit application can request that the application play a short tone from the following list:

• Dial
• Busy
• Congestion
• RadioAck
• Dropped
• Error
• CallWaiting
• Ringing
• GeneralBeep
• PositiveBeep
• NegativeBeep

This feature handles PLAY TONE (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.5).

Refresh

This feature handles REFRESH (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.7). We assume that the modem does the actual refresh. Applications are notified of the refresh but currently no Qtopia applications need to do anything special for it and so we ignore it.

Send messages

SIM toolkit applications can send various message types to the network via SMS, supplementary services (SS), or unstructured supplementary services data (USSD).

We assume that the modem or the vendor plug-in will perform the actual send operation, and that all we need to do is display a user-visible text string while the send is in progress.

This feature handles SEND SHORT MESSAGE (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.10), SEND SS (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.11), and SEND USSD (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.12).

Call setup

The SIM toolkit application can set-up a call on behalf of the user. In this case the user must be asked for authorization before the call is initiated. If the user agrees, then the Qtopia Dialer service is directed to initiate the dial request.

This feature handles SET UP CALL (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.13).

Setup event list

The SIM toolkit application can request that it be notified when the system is idle or there is user activity. This features handles SET UP EVENT LIST (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.16). The application layer is notified of the event request, and there is an API for sending events. But no Qtopia applications currently send the events.

Setup idle mode text

The SIM toolkit application can request that a particular text string be displayed on the phone's home screen whenever the system is idle. This feature handles SET UP IDLE MODE TEXT (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.22). There is an API to send this text string to the application layer but no Qtopia applications currently display the string.

Launch browser

The SIM toolkit application can request that the Web browser be launched with a specific URL. This feature handles LAUNCH BROWSER (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.26). We pass this information onto the Qtopia WebAccess service, but otherwise do not do anything special with it.

The 3GPP specification lists some requirements on the modem. For example, if the modem is busy, not available, or processing a supplementary service request, it must notify the SIM application that the operation cannot be performed. We expect the modem or vendor plug-in to handle this detail, because there is no way for Qtopia to determine this information.

Other commands

There are a number of other proactive SIM commands that are sent from the SIM to the modem, according to 3GPP TS 11.14. We expect these to be handled by the modem itself, or the vendor plug-in. They are of no interest to Qtopia's application layer and so do not appear in the SIM toolkit API.

• MORE TIME (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.4)
• POLL INTERVAL (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.6)
• POLLING OFF (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.14)
• PROVIDE LOCAL INFORMATION (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.15).
• PERFORM CARD APDU (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.17).
• POWER OFF CARD (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.18).
• POWER ON CARD (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.19).
• GET READER STATUS (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.20).
• TIMER MANAGEMENT (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.21).
• RUN AT COMMAND (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.23).
• SEND DTMF (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.24).
• LANGUAGE NOTIFICATION (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.25).
• OPEN CHANNEL (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.27).
• CLOSE CHANNEL (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.28).
• RECEIVE DATA (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.29).
• SEND DATA (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.30).
• GET CHANNEL STATUS (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.31).