My phone broke down a few weeks ago, along with the eSIM inside it. The eSIM was very important to me because I used it for everything. If it had been a physical SIM card, I could have simply bought a new phone and moved the SIM card to it. This was a painful lesson, and I have decided not to use eSIM again.
I had a similar experience; went to an African country for a while, eSIM stops working, support has no idea and suggested downloading it again, which requires 2FA with the number tied to the eSIM, was told to come to one of their stores (which are not in Africa) etc etc.
Sticking to physical for another couple off years until the bugs are worked out.
Of the 3 Pixel 6a phones I've provisioned with eSIMs two of them have mysteriously failed and required me to order physical SIMs to get working again. All attempts by support to resurrect the eSIM failed in both cases. It doesn't help that the error reporting is almost completely useless, giving only a generic error code.
What was the “everything” you’re referring to? Physical sims can fail too, so not a good place to store a phone book if that’s what you mean.
Some providers are better than others at generating and replacing esims. The worst one I came across was Vodafone which removed passwords from their accounts and instead texted a code to log in - of course this is impossible without access to a sim, so good luck I suppose.
> Physical sims can fail too, so not a good place to store a phone book if that’s what you mean.
Sure, but often when a phone fails you can just buy a new phone (or borrow a temporary one) and be able to restore your connection without a carrier's intervention.
When I mention that my phone "broke," I mean that my SIM cards stopped responding completely. I couldn't use it to access the internet or make/receive calls and messages. I concluded that the issue was with my mobile phone because I was using a physical SIM card alongside my eSIM, and the physical SIM also stopped working simultaneously. However, when I transferred my physical SIM to a new device, it started working again.
All my 2FA authentications were linked to this SIM card, including all my internet banking services and other payment systems. Fortunately, I had some money set aside for emergencies. I also utilized this mobile number for various online services and relied on it as my primary method of communication.
It’s inconvenient, but surely you’re able to pretty easily get the number ported to a new eSIM…? You should still have the account and basically should just need to find some WiFi to download it on a different device?
I travel a fair bit, all this makes me think how hard this would be if I was in, say, Europe and my phone was stolen - to get a new physical SIM I’d need to visit a physical store in Australia! Perhaps I could have a family member visit and send it to me in the mail, but in just a slightly different situation the physical SIM is potentially a lot more problematic!
Here’s the feature I want out of (an evolution of) eSIMs replacing physical SIMs.
I am a Verizon customer (US). Various other providers have apparently better deals (eg T-Mobile), but I have no way to assess how coverage would be impacted for my specific scenarios.
Why can’t T-Mobile issue me a free “advertising” eSIM that doesn’t actually provide service (or provides a ridiculously small amount), but allows me to look at what reception my existing phone (with all its limitations on bands) would have if I were a t-mobile customer? Why can’t an app that I choose to give location permissions to gather that info, and the Verizon connection info, over time and space and show me a map of where things would be better or worse?
Why can’t the same system provide just enough connectivity that I can slip them a $20 for a week’s service or whatever if I find myself in a spot where their coverage is better than Verizon’s?
We must applaud these efforts. This was introduced by someone who did not look at eSIM as a mere virtual replacement for SIM cards, but a new tool with new capabilities.
> Why can’t T-Mobile issue me a free “advertising” eSIM that doesn’t actually provide service (or provides a ridiculously small amount), but allows me to look at what reception my existing phone (with all its limitations on bands) would have if I were a t-mobile customer? Why can’t an app that I choose to give location permissions to gather that info, and the Verizon connection info, over time and space and show me a map of where things would be better or worse?
This does exist, as other people have mentioned, but it's worth noting that congestion is a big part of what people experience as "reception", and it's not going to be able to show you that. You might have full bars, but still be unable to actually use your phone, because congestion has slowed your 5G speeds down to the kb/s range.
This is particularly relevant for MVNOs (such as Mint). Any carrier that's not Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile (in the US) is simply renting excess bandwidth from one of those three, and so the actual usable reception is not necessarily going to be well-estimated by the signal that your phone reports.
You can do this with Visible. X days no commitment. The missus used it to test data speeds and reception around here. And surprisingly it was worse than Mint, even though the Visible Trial was their top plan (which isn't subject to QoS when the network gets clogged).
Mint will slow down when T-Mobile is at higher capacities.
> Why can’t T-Mobile issue me a free “advertising” eSIM that doesn’t actually provide service (or provides a ridiculously small amount), but allows me to look at what reception my existing phone (with all its limitations on bands) would have if I were a t-mobile customer? Why can’t an app that I choose to give location permissions to gather that info, and the Verizon connection info, over time and space and show me a map of where things would be better or worse?
They can. Expect this to become a marketing strategy in the foreseeable future. "try our network for free, for a certain time, and all it takes is 3 clicks and no commitment or contract".
> Why can’t an app that I choose to give location permissions to gather that info, and the Verizon connection info, over time and space and show me a map of where things would be better or worse?
Well except for this part, but maybe somebody made such an app.
Sure, but the value of me having a second provider is usually zero… and in the cases where I realize it’s suddenly non-zero, it’s substantially non-zero. (E.g. backpacking trip extended a day or two, trying to get weather update to assess flash flood risk.) This distortion is why I feel like providers should be interested.
I recently discovered (and used) the eSIM + Airalo app combo for international travel. I love it! Prepaid data eSIMs you can buy and install in the comfort of your home, before even going out the door. 5$ gets you 1Gb and 1 week in almost any country, but they also offer a global (130 countries or so) eSIM for $9.
Genius! Just as game changing as Booking and Uber were for me when then first came online.
Having worked in IoT since before it was called that, I was very happy to see physical SIMs get retired because that's one less potential point of failure.
It's not fun to have a card or socket fail on a device that is somewhere on the opposite side of the planet.
To me the biggest thing I see happening is that having multiple sims becomes the norm. Just like I have multiple credit cards in my wallet on different networks, I’ll probably have multiple network options and brands in my “sim card wallet”. Especially for traveling. But also attending a local football game and want the best mmWave network access? Make sure you’ve got the right sim in your wallet.
Can also see this going the way of credit card rewards programs and linking service discounts to sim subscription for gaming and media streaming and maybe more.
> To me the biggest thing I see happening is that having multiple sims becomes the norm.
Dual SIM is quite common now: my last few phones have carried two to save me carrying two devices. It would be nice if true multi-SIM became an option⁰ which by removing the need for physical card eSIMs would enable. If nothing else, this would make testing networks when considering a switch much easier.
I go out on trail running and treking events, and carry two SIMs for extra safety², being able to do so in one phone is more convenient than needing to carry an extra device. My main network has better reception/throughput/etc. in a few places that matter to me, and a suitable service/cost balance for my use patterns, the second one is a PAYG arrangement on Vodafone which (mainly because they use a different signal band) gets at least some reception in many places in the middle of nowhere where other carriers do not. I'm not sure is a third option would help here though, IIRC all providers use the same main frequency range with one or two having a bit of bandwidth in one other.
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[0] Unless existing dual-SIM support in Android¹ is actually generic and already supports 3+.
[1] I don't know if this is standard or if each phone maker is providing their own additions to support it, or if there is standard support and some are providing their own anyway for [reason(s)].
[2] More chance of having reception if I need to get messages out in an emergency – I've never needed to, but I know people who have.
Pretty sure it's been the norm for a while - my 3 year old iPhone supports multiple SIMs.
I just changed carriers (including porting my number) and it was a pleasant experience. Through an app, the new carrier added a new eSIM (and temporary number) and started the port process. When the port was done, it automatically updated my new eSIM with my original number.
Happy to see the SIM card go away. eSIM provides just so much better experience.
This also enables easier installation and setup for basically any carrier. Just download the app, configure eSIM and you're good. Maybe the easier switching is why adoption is kind-of slow on the carrier side? Easier to keep you locked-in with more obstacles in place.
Seen some comments mention potential issues with it vs physical SIM, but I hope these get resolved with time or standard solutions are developed. Personally I had no issues with it, using it for over 2 years now.
I often hear about people having issues moving their eSIM from their old phone to their new phone during new iPhone season. I don't see why I would want that failure mode to exist. With a physical SIM, it couldn't be more straight forward; pop the card out from the old phone and in to the new phone. You don't need permission from anyone, you don't need an app, you don't risk having something fail and having to contact support, you just ... do it.
And if your phone breaks or something and you need to use your old phone, or borrow a friend's old phone, or whatever, you just move the SIM over.
Perhaps you've never actually participated in "new iPhone season" but it never involved moving your old SIM to your new phone. New iPhones came with a new SIM, and part of the activation process involved deactivating your old SIM and activating your new SIM.
As a consumer, eSIMs are fantastic for international travel. I can have a prepaid international data plan up and running before I even get off the plane.
That must be a US thing. Any time I've gotten a new phone (be it iPhone -> iPhone, iPhone -> Android or Android -> iPhone or even Sony Ericsson -> Sony Ericsson back in the day) I've just popped out the SIM from the old phone and put it in the new. The most recent was iPhone 7 -> iPhone 12 and it just worked then as usual.
The only exception is when they've moved to a physically smaller SIM card format.
That's not true. For the last few iPhone upgrade cycles, everytime I got a new iPhone I just removed the SIM it came with, and popped in my old one. Everything worked. The only time i replaced the SIM was when 5G came out and it required a new SIM to work.
I change carriers so incredibly rarely (way less than once per decade) that I've never even considered that as an annoyance. Even if I did switch carriers, I can't imagine that I'd have found it to be much of an issue, switching carriers isn't exactly urgent. And the one-time cost of a new SIM is really low.
But I will admit that it's a potential advantage of eSIM. If you do switch somewhat frequently, I can see it being convenient (assuming all the technical stuff works out).
Depends on where you are, in a lot of the world a new sim is a few dollars from any convenience store on every corner, whereas I have no idea where I’d have to go to even talk to someone about an eSIM.
The main benefit is that it's easier to have multiple eSIMs than to have multiple physical SIMs. Sure you can only have one active simultaneously (I think?), but that's better than the status quo of physical SIMs.
I'm a US/UK resident, and I use an eSIM for my US provider and a physical SIM for my UK provider. Since I use both numbers for various localized services like 2FA, food delivery, etc., the ability to have multiple SIMs has been a huge improvement compared to just a few years ago, when I had to have two phones to be able to log into my bank.
Are the US eSIM only iPhone models rated better than the EU traditional SIM models? I was under the impression that they're all pretty water resistant these days.
No, it only provides a better experience if you change SIM card more often than you change your phone, which isn't the case for most people.
eSIM card transfer can be a hassle, expensive or outright impossible because it's up to the telco to decide it. I had to visit a store in Thailand to transfer my SIM card. I had to pay $ to re-download my eSIM for another operator. I was simply told "can't do" with a still-active eSIM I bought from Airalo.
Definitely nice to "download SIM cards" instead of buying them, but everything that follows is a pain.
Hmm, that seems a bit worrisome for someone like me that doesn't have Play Services and only uses software from F-Droid. I haven't really investigated this.. does it always require an app?
Oh man - My partner pre-ordered an iPhone 14 Pro on launch day, first iPhone with an eSIM. Set up was a nightmare and took over a month to get resolved. She thought she was going to lose her phone number at one point. Still don't know if the fault was with Apple or AT&T but leaning AT&T based on some of the conversations we had between the two teams.
Flash forward a few months and my upgrade and provider change went through without much of a fuss.
Of course there can be the chicken and egg problem of you need Internet to provision the eSIM, but until you get the SIM running you have no Internet. WiFi isn't always available.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it entirely possible for your cellular provider to block you from using their network based on what phone your physical SIM card is installed in?
To me, the physical SIM card just seems like an old technical limitation. The concerns surrounding its elimination don’t seem to have strong backing in my mind.
Some will have a list of "supported devices", and if you try to use anything not on the list it'll be blocked.
This isn't legal in some countries though. The UK telecoms regulator (Ofcom) prohibits any form of restriction on putting SIMs into devices, for example. Previously carriers would do things like saying that a SIM on a plan for phones couldn't be used in a tablet.
A physical SIM or eSIM doesn't make a lot of difference with this, although a carrier obviously can't do anything to stop you moving a physical SIM between device.
Changing an eSIM often requires contact with the carrier, so that's an opportunity for them to say no/make it difficult/charge a fee.
SIM or eSIM here is irrelevant. The operator will block a specific IMEI that was reported stolen, so any future users will not be able to use a SIM/eSIM from that specific operator in that phone.
> To me, the physical SIM card just seems like an old technical limitation
The SIM/eSIM is just your ID card to connect to the network, I don't see it as a limitation. The only difference now is that you can verify your identity and download it, rather than visit a store.
When i was working with the emerging (at the time) nfc technology it was evident it was all about control: the sim card usually holds the secure element, and it’s really a war between carriers, os providers and phone manufacturers.
Who controls the secure element controls another big share of the user’s life.
Well carriers own the networks that the secure element grants access to. At the end of the day I dont think carriers care about who owns the tokens/auth data for the network, but that 1) they are furnished by the network under their own control and 2) they get paid for the network access
An example where this matters is tethering right now. My android phone won't tether. It's an unlocked android phone bought independently of the carrier. But it won't tether the connection to another device as my provider has a flag that this is not supported and android due to pressure from carriers obeys this on all phones, even non carrier locked phones.
Of course I can just swap the sim into a dedicated tethering hotspot and it works. But esim will soon fix that as esims are tied to the phone.
Verizon has done this to in the past. They told me directly they prefer physical SIM over esim. I think its mostly a fear of unknown vs comfort of what is known. Ultimately it means reduced friction between the top 3 big networks. It goes both ways though. Easier for people to leave and easier to join. These companies are moving toward a software / service discounts to retain users instead of the inconvenience of sim changes
> Is there any reason for carriers to prefer physical SIM cards?
I'm not in telecoms, but I suppose they want to disintermediate device manufacturers who are trying to insinuate themselves between networks and their subscribers. Maybe with a hint of reducing points of failure
eSIM is total crap. Networks here refuse to load it on certain phones that weren't 'validated', charge for a SIM swap to another phone, or limit the number of times you can change phones per month. Usually you need some half assed app too.
The idea was to make things easier and give the consumer more control. It has completely failed on both counts.
A physical sim I can just grab and stick in whatever phone I want, however much I please without the network whining about it or charging me. I don't want eSIM.
Luckily here in Europe most networks don't even offer them for prepay and I don't do phone contacts. As many other people. So for now the manufacturers have no choice, they will have to keep making them.
I feel like the card forces them to make it easy. Whoever physically holds the card is authorized to use it. eSIM is required to have additional auth steps, and that opens a can of worms that might not be solved so well. It's kinda like audio jack vs bluetooth.
SIMs did have issues like this too, usually more about the phone than the SIM itself. Buy used phone, pop in new SIM, find it's locked to the old SIM on AT&T's side. Try to switch carriers, find it's carrier-locked. But eSIMs add extra layers of stuff that can go wrong.
> The day is coming when you’ll have to bid your trusty SIM card goodbye, and that’s a shame.
I'm waiting for the legislative hammer comes down on this. Any government body that has any sort of teeth (i.e EU) needs to clamp down on this and prevent this from becoming a reality. eSIMs are great, but they are no SIM card replacement in their current form. It's as useful (and provides as much benefit) as soldered RAM chips or batteries.
AFAIK, e-sims can be arbitrarily created and assigned to a phone, there isn't some hardware limitation like soldered ram. I can got to a new country and get an e-sim without having to hunt down a kiosk.
On my last extended trip to the US, I just signed up for a prep-pay monthly account with Visible and was able to get going pretty easily without having to fiddle with any actual hardware. The current generation of iPhone supports 8 e-sims. It all seems pretty good to me
What happens if your phone broke while in the US? Is your carrier from your home country able to assign you an eSIM while overseas? Or are you stuck until you can return home?
What happens if your phone is damaged at 1am? Do you have to wait until the next business day to be able to have a new eSIM issued?
I'm not saying eSIM doesn't have value, I can immediately see the value it provides. What I'm saying is that it doesn't replace SIM cards. We're taking something that is device agnostic and forcefully tying it to a device. Both options should continue to exist in parallel, just like we continue to have both internal and cloud storage on our devices. At least until eSIM tech can improve enough to overcome these issues.
If my phone breaks then I can scan a QR code or use an app to assign the e-sim from my home network to the replacement phone. e-sims only need access to the internet, not the network, to be provisioned AFAIK, and it can be done automatically at any time of the day so customer service reps don't need to be involved, unlike a physical sim card. Last time I signed up for an e-sim, I just had to have wifi, and the whole process was about 15 minutes.
What happens if my phone is stolen with the sim card, or the sim card breaks while I am away from my home country? Literally all of the problems you cited are not solved with regular sim cards.
Getting set up with an e-sim can be as easy as: download app/scan qr code, and provide payment info.
...why not? I've pretty routinely used US and UK bought phones in both jurisdictions, and with SIMs from both jurisdictions. You might not have perfect band coverage, but most of them will be there. It's been a long time since "world" phone models were a distinct category, right?
The first question here is: can your carrier activate an eSIM while you do not have an active cellular connection to the carrier (i.e while overseas)?
If I were to install the Mint app and sign in while in the UK, will they activate the SIM card while I am outside of the US? In the experience of my brother-in-law that accidentally deleted their eSIM profile, the answer was no -- they had to wait until they were back in the US weeks later (and didn't have access to their iMessage, various SMS-based MFA or anything else as a consequence).
If the answer here is no, then you are completely out of luck in OP's example while overseas.
I think that’s also an artificial limitation on the network side. I was able to get an eSim from mexico sent to me across the atlantic just with a whatsapp photo. The shitty part was that a friend had to go to the office and pretend to be me with a fake id because the carrier only offers the eSim by directly handing you an envelope with the qr.
Remember the e-sim is a physical sim card, it's just a physical sim card that is part of the main board and therefore cannot be swapped out the same way that regular sim cards can.
