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I can't understand why anyone would want this. Being able to physically swap sims so I don't ever have to deal with carrier customer service is a /good/ thing,

I can't understand why anyone would want this. Being able to physically swap sims so I don't ever have to deal with carrier customer service is a /good/ thing, especially when it's in the carrier's interest to make this as difficult as possible.

iamricks 5y ago
Maybe to avoid sim swapping? Although i am not sure if there would be an alternative attack.
- orev 5y ago
  SIM Swapping attacks are not performed by physically stealing a SIM from someone’s phone. They usually involve having someone who works at the carrier making changes in the system to route calls/data to a different IMEI. Physical or eSIM would be irrelevant in that case.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  SIM swapping has nothing to do with a physical SIM. It's convincing the carrier to reissue a new SIM and associate it to the previous account. It can be done just as well with e-SIMs - in that case the carrier will give you an SM-DP code instead of a physical SIM.
rosndo 5y ago
I don’t have a physical sim in my phone, but I have 8 esims. As far as I can tell the physical sim slot is just a complete waste of space, I can’t use it anyway without toggling one of my esims off.
- Aardwolf 5y ago
  If you buy a new phone to upgrade your current one, how easy will it be to get the 8 esims in the new one?
  - rosndo 5y ago
    Much easier than 8 physical sims for sure! The long term SIM cards (Virgin UAE, Three HK, Lifecell Ukraine) with phone numbers I can easily transfer by going on the carrier apps or websites. But we’re rapidly headed towards a data-only world where the SIMs are essentially disposable, there’s nothing you’d care about transferring except perhaps some prepaid data you have left.
arthur_sav 5y ago
I feel like this is a "cars can't replace horses" kind of debate.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  I mean, cars are a great example of a technological advancement that absolutely ruined lots of places around the world: - city centers, rendered noisy, rotted out of businesses, and replaced with parking lots - rural areas rendered completely car-dependent since roads are no longer walking-friendly - small towns who lost their entire downtown strip because people would rather drive their car to wal-mart - millions of pedestrian deaths worldwide per year because cars make it very easy to "accidentally" kill people So... I guess the lesson is that it is exactly that kind of debate, and that there are pros and cons on both sides?
SloopJon 5y ago
I tried to activate an iPhone on an existing Google Fi plan using eSIM, and it was a nightmare. The frontline support is responsive, but can't do anything about it. The specialists I was escalated to were useless, and only reachable by email every day or two. After a week of this nonsense, it occurred to me that maybe I could start over with a physical SIM card. I chatted with frontline support again, and he said he was positive that would work. (So why didn't anyone suggest that?!) I couldn't use the old card, because it was clearly beyond their capabilities to reactivate a perfectly good SIM card, but I was able to buy a new one at Best Buy and complete the process in about five minutes. I would have swapped the card in the first place and been blissfully ignorant of the eSIM fiasco, but I somehow had it in my head that the iPhone used a smaller card than the five-year old phone it was replacing. It may not be eSIM's fault, per se, but if the design is dependent on carrier competence, it's fatally flawed, as far as I'm concerned.
smoovb 5y ago
You are aware you can have 10 or more eSIMs plans on an iPhone, right? You are free to swap between them as you wish? You are only locked into a single carrier if you purchase the iPhone thru that carrier. Always purchasing and unlocked phone is what solves this.
- boondaburrah 5y ago
  All of this depends on the good graces of the company that wrote the software, and I don't see how they can be trusted over good ol' physically removing a card and putting a different one in. Especially when they have a track record of being abusive to customers.

iamricks 5y ago

Maybe to avoid sim swapping? Although i am not sure if there would be an alternative attack.

orev 5y ago
SIM Swapping attacks are not performed by physically stealing a SIM from someone’s phone. They usually involve having someone who works at the carrier making changes in the system to route calls/data to a different IMEI. Physical or eSIM would be irrelevant in that case.
Nextgrid 5y ago
SIM swapping has nothing to do with a physical SIM. It's convincing the carrier to reissue a new SIM and associate it to the previous account. It can be done just as well with e-SIMs - in that case the carrier will give you an SM-DP code instead of a physical SIM.

rosndo 5y ago

I don’t have a physical sim in my phone, but I have 8 esims. As far as I can tell the physical sim slot is just a complete waste of space, I can’t use it anyway without toggling one of my esims off.

Aardwolf 5y ago
If you buy a new phone to upgrade your current one, how easy will it be to get the 8 esims in the new one?
- rosndo 5y ago
  Much easier than 8 physical sims for sure! The long term SIM cards (Virgin UAE, Three HK, Lifecell Ukraine) with phone numbers I can easily transfer by going on the carrier apps or websites. But we’re rapidly headed towards a data-only world where the SIMs are essentially disposable, there’s nothing you’d care about transferring except perhaps some prepaid data you have left.

arthur_sav 5y ago

I feel like this is a "cars can't replace horses" kind of debate.

dont__panic 5y ago
I mean, cars are a great example of a technological advancement that absolutely ruined lots of places around the world: - city centers, rendered noisy, rotted out of businesses, and replaced with parking lots - rural areas rendered completely car-dependent since roads are no longer walking-friendly - small towns who lost their entire downtown strip because people would rather drive their car to wal-mart - millions of pedestrian deaths worldwide per year because cars make it very easy to "accidentally" kill people So... I guess the lesson is that it is exactly that kind of debate, and that there are pros and cons on both sides?

SloopJon 5y ago

I tried to activate an iPhone on an existing Google Fi plan using eSIM, and it was a nightmare. The frontline support is responsive, but can't do anything about it. The specialists I was escalated to were useless, and only reachable by email every day or two. After a week of this nonsense, it occurred to me that maybe I could start over with a physical SIM card. I chatted with frontline support again, and he said he was positive that would work. (So why didn't anyone suggest that?!) I couldn't use the old card, because it was clearly beyond their capabilities to reactivate a perfectly good SIM card, but I was able to buy a new one at Best Buy and complete the process in about five minutes. I would have swapped the card in the first place and been blissfully ignorant of the eSIM fiasco, but I somehow had it in my head that the iPhone used a smaller card than the five-year old phone it was replacing. It may not be eSIM's fault, per se, but if the design is dependent on carrier competence, it's fatally flawed, as far as I'm concerned.

smoovb 5y ago

You are aware you can have 10 or more eSIMs plans on an iPhone, right? You are free to swap between them as you wish? You are only locked into a single carrier if you purchase the iPhone thru that carrier. Always purchasing and unlocked phone is what solves this.

boondaburrah 5y ago
All of this depends on the good graces of the company that wrote the software, and I don't see how they can be trusted over good ol' physically removing a card and putting a different one in. Especially when they have a track record of being abusive to customers.