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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

SIM Commands

The following SIM commands are supported:

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). It is assumed that the modem performs the refresh. Applications are notified of the refresh however at present, Qtopia applications are not required to action the notification, and simply 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).

It is assumed that the modem or the vendor plug-in performs the send operation, and all that is required by Qtopia is to 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 Set-up

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).

Set-up 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, however no Qtopia applications currently send the events.

Set-up 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) and the information is passed to the Qtopia WebAccess service.

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. It is expected that the modem or vendor plug-in to handle this detail, as there is no way for Qtopia to determine this information.

Internationalization

The SIM toolkit application can request the language that the surrounding system is running in so that it can adapt its text message's to the user's language. This feature handles PROVIDE LOCAL INFORMATION (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.15).

It is expected that the modem vendor plug-in will intercept the =PROVIDE LOCAL INFORMATION= message, call Qtopia::languageList(), and pass the user's language back to the SIM automatically. No other interaction is required.

The SIM toolkit application can inform the user as to the current language that it is using with the feature LANGUAGE NOTIFICATION (3GPP TS 11.14, section 6.4.25). This information is passed to the Qtopia application layer for applications that wish to display it.

Other Commands

There are a number of other pro-active 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 - any responses that need to be sent to the modem are sent by the vendor plug-in. They are of no interest to Qtopia's application layer and so do not appear in the SIM toolkit API.