The last time I dropped my phone and broke its screen I took out the SIM and left the phone in a repair shop. I went home, put the SIM in an old phone. If the broken phone had an eSIM, would I been able to use the old one as a backup? Maybe by going to a shop and askig for a physical SIM. That would be slower and less convenient. A physical SIM fits in a Samsung A40 which is probably the smaller and lighter Android phone available today and in much smaller phones of the past so it's definitely not a burden.
If we disregard the fact that many older but still usable phones don’t support e-sim (which was the original point), what do you mean ”just” download the e-sim?
At least in my country, getting an e-sim is a pretty involved process which requires secure authentication, and specifically in my case that authentication would be gone with the now-broken phone if one didn’t have the foresight to have a backup (which many people do not).
If you have a physical sim, you can move it to almost any (unlocked) mobile phone in existence (at least in Europe) and at most you’ll need the PIN/PUK.
Of course, this goes the other way as well if you drop your phone in the ocean for example, provided you have alternate authentication and a compatible phone, e-sim will have you up and running again much faster.
Not everyone has that option. For my carrier I have to call them and ask if they can help me set up esim each time because I can't do it myself. And each time it takes at least 30 minutes. Plus I just don't trust esim yet, it hasn't been able to shine as a technology. Give it a few years, I'm all for esim, but we have to make the switch gradually. Give me both for now and keep physical sims alive for the next 7+ years to get everyone onboard. By then the process for getting an esim will have gotten waaay smoother.
Lucky for you, but I don't have that option. I also like having the ability to move a SIM between my 5G CPE and my phone. Not gonna replace a 2 year old, €700 CPE just to try and chase eSIM dreams.
Oh yeah, it's great that my car has a way to install a saddle on, because if the car breaks I can easily switch back to my horse.
Carriers are the real problem here, not letting you easily switch between a physical SIM and an eSIM in case that happens. Some do, but you usually have to call up, there are delays, etc. Ideally it would be an easy switch in their web admin panel.
But you would need to somehow get in touch with said carrier. Granted, you could probably do that over WiFi but if my phone breaks when, say, I'm out camping I'm SoL.
In the UK most carriers also offer printed QR codes for the eSIM. These can be scanned more than once to activate it. So you can store that somewhere and scan it on another phone.
While I could see how the camping scenario might matter to a few people, I would personally rather have a couple mAh larger battery because of the slight physical space savings that I imagine eSIM brings.
Oh yeah, agreed. If moving an eSIM requires me stowing away a QR code with my backup phone then I'll gladly give up my physical SIM slot for more battery.
Would you bring a spare phone then? Sounds implausible. If you did, and it’s an emergency you can use a phone without a sim at all with the emergency network.
I actually do, it's always good to have a few back up essential things if they don't take up too much space. Every time I go camping/travelling I update my old OnePlus 3T (LineageOS is still up-to-date which is amazing) and bring it with me. If my iPhone breaks I can move the SIM card and still keep at it.
Agreed. Both wife and I need our phones for work connectivity, and it's a lot easier just to carry our old models in case one of ours dies on a trip. I'm not going to buy an iPhone while on a trip out of the country - they won't even have the models that support Verizon in most markets.
My old phone is still logged in to Apple, still works, still holds a charge. I'd like some eSIM system that was as convenient as "phone dies, pull SIM, put in old phone, boot".
The associated esim app has free connectivity to complete the signup flow without wifi. It is obviously more convenient to download an app to your backup phone than futz around with physical sims you just have to remember to do so before you go camping.
Now you might retort aha! See! In a very narrow set of circumstances.. let me cut you off, look, you're going to need to remember to bring a paperclip or sim tool to do it the old fashioned way anyhow. So you're remembering something. If you're an amnesic lost in the woods you got bigger problems.
Besides, those are 2 grams of weight savings in my ultra light backpacking setup!
My carrier don't let you download an eSIM - they have to mail you a physical QR code that has a SIM number then swap them over the phone or in a store. Makes it a week long process at least.
I worry about this so much. I have a Samsung Galaxy S10e that I dread losing or breaking... a family member with a barely more recent Galaxy had to give up a sim slot and a headphone jack. Her phone does add 5G however which anecdotally has not been noticeably faster but has a huge impact on battery life. If I can't keep repairing my phone maybe the next one I get will be an iPhone from Europe.
Recently moved to a new country (non-EU). The carrier I'm using does not offer eSIM and shipped me a physical SIM card. This is not an outlier, I have a couple of physical SIM cards, some US, that I wouldn't be able to use if the phone was eSIM only, like the recent US iPhone.
Also moving a eSIM from iOS device to non-iOS device (for example to plug into my secondary Android) is a massive PITA. I always have to re-issue the SIM which I often can't do and need to jumps through customer support queries and hoops. My current provider back home doesn't even give me the option to do it while abroad and support told me to come back for a day, then finish the eSIM reissuing application, so I'm stuck with the physical SIM anyway.
eSIMs will be great one day, but that day is not now. I much rather pop the SIM out of phone 1 and move it into phone 2, or iPad when I want, than wait hours (or sometimes days) to get a new eSIM approved, and repeat that process every single time I want to move a connection to another device
Dealing with the carrier is usually the worst part of owning a phone. Asking for a new esim is likely to send you down a path of navigating a process where they try to sell you an upgrade, or they send you a QR code that doesn't work, or a million other possible problems.
> Dealing with the carrier is usually the worst part of owning a phone.
It's probably intentional. I was reading an article in the French press the other day [0] on the subject. Some head of something or other in the industry said they were weary of mostly Apple, Samsung, and Google starting to like playing the providers and removing the actual carriers from the users' psyche. "The SIM card is the last physical link between the carrier and the client".
I've also checked my carrier's site for getting an esim. Apparently I'd have to pay the same amount to get one as for a physical one (minus delivery costs). But at least, contrary to some other commenters' situation, they seem to allow you to move it from phone to phone as long as you hold on to your qr code. They, of course, don't offer the option of storing it in the "secure" client area.
When I bought my phone last year at a carrier store, they really, really pushed me to get a physical SIM card. I asked them why they wanted me to install a physical SIM they told me I’ll get higher data speeds.
In my case, it was two clicks in the carrier's web interface and I got the new QR code showed me and even sent by email. No upgrades, no dark patterns, just presented a QR code, I scanned it, worked. It took like 2 minutes
Yes, but what does that tell us? How is that useful? All you've done is point out a situation where the happy path works. If you have a great carrier whose systems are working correctly then it's going to be fine. That's what you'd expect. No one really cares about the cases where things go right. They're boring. They should be boring. The problem is never what happens when it works, but what happens when it doesn't work.
I've spent the past two and a half decades learning that the happy path is the least interesting part of any system. Building a working app is about 10% of the work of building anything. The other 90% is error handling, designing processes to get things back on track, and managing when things change. If you focus on the bit that works, and you assume that things will work, and that any human part of the system works (where code is written by humans) it is bound to break at some point.
The issue here is that taking a physical sim card works and dropping it in a different handset has far fewer moving parts and it's all stuff that's been proven over the past 30 years. There is less to go wrong. As soon as you start adding carriers and their shitty websites into the mix things will screw up for a non-trivial number of users.
How about we wait and see if this actually happens instead of prematurely complaining that the sky is falling?
All indications so far are that eSIMs work quite well. Plus it’s pretty awesome to be able to purchase prepaid service through a company like Airalo when traveling abroad and to be able to use it instantly. Same goes for switching carriers.
How about we wait and see if this actually happens instead of prematurely complaining that the sky is falling?
Generally speaking, leaving something to see if it'll work means it's too late to change things easily if doesn't work. Managing change is one of the hardest things to do in any company, let alone industry, so finding the problems during the testing phase is really important. If it gets to the consumer and things aren't working (which happens a lot) that means people screwed up.
Buying a local sim card and putting it in your phone when you're travelling works fine, and instantly, so eSIMs aren't offering any advantage there besides not needing to go to a local shop.
And that is a huge advantage both for consumers and providers. You’re grossly underrating the benefits to commerce and the reduction of purchase friction.
And then your carrier bills you 3€ for it, because they can. They can also just disable the iPhone-to-iPhone eSIM transfer functionality. Ask me how I know.
eSIMs are incredibly user-hostile because they switch the ownership of a SIM card from the customer to the provider, so you're completely at their mercy if you need to transfer over your SIM card from one device to another. And Apple facilitates this.
eSIM is a potentially smoother setup process if the alternative is getting a card through the mail, but physical SIM switching is better than having to contact your carrier.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is always true for physical SIMs.
I recently bought a temporary SIM in the US during my holidays (StraightTalk) and was surprised that you can only use the physical SIM after you register online with you IMEI.
I haven't checked, but I imagine that after that the card would only work with that IMEI.
Fortunately, I don't think this is a practice in Europe.
To be fair, though, Straight Talk is absolutely hot garbage. I had a fiasco trying to activate two physical SIMs and port numbers to them back in January. Their provisioning system chokes and dies on phones with both eSIM and physical SIM capability (like the factory-unlocked iPhone SE 3rd gen models I was trying to activate). I spent hours on the phone holding and talking to reps, getting disconnected and calling back to start all over again. It was a nightmare.
I'm quite happy to read this, because my experience was also awful - they didn't accept the IMEI of 3 phones I tried and their app is full of ads (not to mention that I kept receiving scam calls).
I really hope that it's because they are awful and this is not the typical American mobile phone experience.
eSIMs also have the advantage of an activation card can be sent instantly from almost anywhere (it’s a QR code) which is great if your phone (and physical sim) are lost or damaged.
> Some carriers support SIM transfers from your previous iPhone to your new iPhone without needing to contact them
“Some” is true afaik. It’s at the providers discretion.
AFAIK it’s also only possible if you’re moving from iPhone to iPhone, not if you’re moving to an Android. I’m not certain moving back and forth between multiple phones is easily supported.
I like e-sims in general, but this is a downside for some use cases.
In theory eSIM allows for self service without going to a store or waiting for shipping. In practice you might be on hold with your phone company for an hour. Some USA MVNOs don’t support eSIM.
As the person managing phone contracts in our company, I really like that part of eSIMs. I can mail a phone or have the employee purchase one and then mail my providers support and I‘m all set. About one hour later, the phone will have connectivity. If you‘re using an MDM solution that supports it, you can even manage the assigned eSIMs there.
Now, we‘re on a business contract and we have a responsive team on the other side, so the comfort of this hinges on the provider obviously.
Not everywhere in Europe..., In Slovakia 3/4 operators have single-use QR codes (and for the 4th you have to first remove your eSIM from your old phone before transferring to new, which wouldn't help in case of broken/stolen phone) and none of them have an easy to use web interface to generate a new one, you have to contact support somehow for them to generate it for you.
One operator even charges 10€ for a new QR code for your eSIM (same price as getting a new physical SIM card).
Reading this comment and others, it sounds to me like legislating the carriers and phone manufacturers to force them to make eSIM more user friendly would work just as well (or better?) as legislation to mandate physical SIM slots.
Yes, definitely. And while we're at it also force them to support eSIM smartwatch profiles. In Slovakia 0 carriers support them, not even Telekom, which supports them in 4/5 neighboring countries..
If the phone breaks it’s much easier to just transfer the card to a different phone though, if a code needs to be sent there’s the identification problems.
You need the carrier to offer eSIM, of course, but then you can just store a bunch of eSIMs on your iPhone and switch which one is active in the Settings app.
I think you’re unnecessarily worried about this. If you don’t trust your carrier to get this process right, perhaps it’s worth choosing a different carrier.
Do you know a carrier which you have any leverage against? I don't. Better get a physical SIM.
Oh, you do? It's still a single point of failure. Customer support servers down? Should have gotten a physical SIM.
Unbeatable servers? Good luck swapping eSIMs when you want to sell/throw away your phone abroad, out of range of internet. Should have gotten a phyical one.
Never out of range? Wonder what you do when your phone breaks and you have no one to babysit you through the process. Should have gotten physical.
Etc.
That's what an additional sigle point of failure means: less control over your own infrastructure.
If this actually happens to people in real life, let’s talk about it. All indications are that this problem isn’t a serious one yet.
New technologies often improve things in some way while introducing concerns and potential drawbacks in other ways. The question is whether, on balance, the new way is worth the risk.
My experience so far is that it is — it’s very convenient to be able to use a service like Airalo to order prepaid eSIMs for data service in foreign countries in advance. It makes traveling a joy now, and my wife is irritated a whole lot less by the prepaid SIM hunt I used to go on when traveling abroad. Plus no more tools or risking losing your SIM tray (or the SIM itself) when you swap it out on an airplane tray table.
It depends on how you define "serious". If it works for 99% people with a net positive and it doesn't work at all for 1%, is it serious enough to keep the old version?
My experience says that it will get steamrolled and the 1% left hanging, looking at significantly worse solutions, or none altogether.
A 1% failure rate would be huge. That's 1 out of every 100 customers. No rational carrier would tolerate that.
I know we all hate telcos and mobile phone carriers -- and a lot of their mistrust is quite frankly deserved -- but this seems like an edge case that most customers won't even run into. First they need to switch devices, which eliminates most customers, and then second, they need to experience some kind of failure on switch. If the failure rate is any higher than before, I would be surprised. But let's wait to see the data before we all go up in arms.
My carrier is currently not doing eSIM. Also some low cost carriers can’t be contacted in any other way than a chat. Which is a problem in many real world situations if you need an eSIM asap. Sometimes there is no one in the chat available at all.
If your carrier doesn’t support eSIM, then this discussion doesn’t apply to you. Carriers aren’t going to make eSIM available until they have the support structure available to make it useful to customers.
I guess eSIM is still a luxury for now so they want to milk it. I have only ever heard of first time activation of a sim. Vodafone in NL requires an activation via their app, or phone, before first use. But I think that is normal. The last time I got a physical sim it was in 2013 and I have transferred the same sim across multiple phones since.
I know nothing about esims, what makes them so much better than a physical sim? I can't say I have any major qualms with what I have right now, I just shove it in my phone and forget about it.
When I landed I made a one off 400 yen payment, like tree fiffdy or something, and immediately had data working right at the airport for the rest of the month. Apple Pay, one off, no contracts, no queues, no diligent service people. It saved probably 1 hour of my life! And it is somehow significantly cheaper (depends on the country, ymmv).
Frankly I pity people who get off a long flight and wait in line to get an overpriced piece of plastic to stick in their phones like it is 1823.
If you travel to more than 1 or 2 countries per year, especially less developed countries, you'll learn that your life (connection) depends on picking up cheap $5-15 sim cards at the border for each country.
I couldn't imagine them jumping on the esim train in any useful way in the near term.
In theory, eSIMs actually make life easier in that scenario.
Easier to get online in a new country if you don’t have to first seek out a physical SIM card. Plus you keep your home SIM secure in the phone where there’s no danger of losing it.
Instead, just get on WiFi when you arrive, take your pick of cheap offers, and download the eSIM directly to your phone.
> ”I couldn't imagine them jumping on the esim train in any useful way in the near term.”
Depends on the country. Thailand, for example, is very eSIM friendly. But there’s plenty of “developed” countries in Europe where eSIMs are almost unheard of.
There are multiple companies like Airalo offering pre-paid $5-15 eSIM cards for most countries in the world. They also offer continental and global eSIM working in multiple countries if you are moving a lot. The offering is a lot better than what you find at the border and you don’t have to get your passport scanned by a random person. Most backpackers I know switched a long time ago.
It’s actually the scenario that finally convinced me that eSIM was a good idea.
I've used Airalo for years as well, but their global sim only supports 84 countries, and is usually 5-15x the price a local sim per GB. If you're spending a considerable amount of time in the country and tethering, it adds up.
I can. I have used them extensively while travelling (always local offers - I never needed a sim for multiple countries but a European one is barely more expensive than a single EU country one for example). Airalo sells local esim for something like 200 countries with prices which are competitive and offering which are often better tailored to travellers.
In plenty of countries if you try buying straight from a local provider you can’t buy low amount of data or have to get voice with it. Meanwhile Airalo allows you to buy 1, 5 or 10GB for very cheap and topping up is pushing a button in their app.
I meant it when I said it was insanely more convenient.
Not much. Apple wanted eSIM for years but carriers fought them over it. They like the physical lock-in of SIM cards. Customers can't easily switch because they have to wait for a SIM to ship or go to a carrier's brick and mortar presence to replace it.
Now? People can switch carriers while in their living room. Takes a matter of minutes. Absolutely frictionless.
Physical SIMs are convenient, especially for travellers and facilitate competition through super-easy carrier switching. What are the improvements of e-SIMs for customers? Please don't say size.
In many countries there are zero local carriers that support eSIMs. Maybe in some hypothetical future this is not the case, but at least in this decade a phone that has a physical SIM is essential.
