The Mini PCI-e standard has a couple of pins dedicated to USB data lines, which the modem in question uses ... which pins are used to talk to the SIM card, and soldering them up to a SIM adapter ...

[Nils Pipenbrinck] has been working on a very interesting problem. The SIM card in your cellphone talks to the contactless near-field communication (NFC) chip through a cool protocol that we’d ...

Typically available as an external USB module, for desktop computers, the modem may also be available on a PCI or PCI Express (PCIe) card that plugs into an empty slot on the motherboard.