Smaller SIM Packaging

[jamesd2010]

As part of giffgaff’s ethos of being environmentally friendly, I feel that the idea to change how we look at our SIM packaging is required. My focus in this idea is the plastic SIM holder users receive to show the activation code, and then house the SIM.

What can be done?

It’s simple, this extra space is not needed at all, and we could shrink the plastic holder by half and still have sufficient space needed for the plastic holder to serve its purpose. Shrinking this would make things different; only one other network orange has done this, as you will see with the image below:

What would this mean for giffgaff?

• Half the amount of waste
• Would make the company more sustainable, and a much greener business
• Would expand on giffgaff’s ethos of being green, and efficient
• Would reduce the weight of SIM packages
• Enable giffgaff to ship more SIMs per envelope
• Overall, the production costs would be far less than producing SIM cases double the size.

If we was to reduce the Size of the SIM package, it would indeed save giffgaff money, I also think that it adds a more unique approach on how things are looked at. Obviously giffgaff are extraordinary, they’re different, so to see this change would most certainly show the idea of this.

Size does matter – And using the smaller SIM cases would overall reduce costs. The only issue as it stands is the number of batches of the original size we have. This isn’t much of a problem, as they’ve already done the damage, giffgaff have paid for this, if the idea was to be implemented, we could see this happen when the old batches have all gone.

Looking at the scale of the issue, more than 2.9 billion SIM cards weighing 11,600 tonnes were shipped to mobile operators across the globe in 2008* – Giffgaff could change this. Orange have already started the process, and have received recognition for doing such thing.

I have gone and got an Orange reduced SIM holder, and taken a photo in comparison to giffgaff's below:

*Statistics taken from: http://newsroom.orange.co.uk

Kudo this idea if you like it, I think this change would be great, and save giffgaff more money.

[coloncancer]

Darrepainter explains it perfectly - a full size SIM is the whole plastic thing; credit card sized.  a Mini-SIM is what most people use these days and refer to as a SIM card.  iPhones and a few other devices use the Micro-SIM format.

[edoubleliot]

I understand the idea perfectly and love it, smaller packaging to fit around the SIM- wonderful.

But why are we talking about massive sized SIM cards that have no relevance?

[jamesd2010]

@edoubleliot

If you love it, kudo it . And honestly I don't know, the confusion between the subject and SIM sizes has made people confused .

[gmanson]

I think it sounds like a great idea. Maybe the card should use the template in which it can be a mini or micro sim, like in the image below. That way if micro becomes the standard people can use old phones with GiffGaff too.

[reecehaigh]

Does their really need to be the bit of plastic housing the sim. All it is really being used for is a couple of digits...why dont these be printed onto a piece of paper. THis means just the sim and the bit of paper with the activation code on it are sent in the single piece of paper to customers.

[jamesd2010]

@reecehaigh

Unfortunately, it's all about being professional and showing the brand, if giffgaff was to just send SIMs without any sort of recognition, 1 it would look odd, and 2 it's about protecting the SIM, the housing is to protect the SIM. And like you said show the activation code. I do see what you're saying, and agree, but it's just a standard set in today's society. I think my idea of reducing what we don't need is sufficient to be greener, and save money.

[liamcee123]

Geat idea x

[jamesd2010]

@liamcee123

Thanks, to support this idea you should kudo it .

[joshaw]

Fantastic idea mate, kudos given

[vincent]

Hi all, we would like to accept the idea, however this will take a long time before we can implement it. Likely by the end of 2012. There are several reasons for this. One is that we still need to find out if our supplier can do this, design, ect. and because sims have a very long lead time (3 to 4 months) to get created, we have a lot of sims in stock already. So it is something we want to look at in the future.