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> 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 go

> 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.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
Huh? 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
- someotherperson 3y ago
  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.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    Mint.com: install app & sign in and load up the eSIM. And that's the hard way. Providers could just support a QR code that I scan with my iPhone.
    - someotherperson 3y ago
      I think there has been some misunderstanding. 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.
      - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
        This is a carrier imposed restriction. You can do it without cellular, via WiFi. I suppose they geo block it.
      - licebmi__at__ 3y ago
        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.
  - ginko 3y ago
    >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? There's a good chance your physical SIM won't work with a phone bought in the US anyways.
    - callahad 3y ago
      ...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?
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        They are talking about carrier-locked phones which are still somehow a thing in the US.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    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.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      > Getting set up with an e-sim can be as easy as: download app/scan qr code, and provide payment info. But it's not. For something whose main purpose is ease of use, they didn't make it easy before trying to roll it out.
      - dghlsakjg 3y ago
        But it is. I said that because that’s literally what I had to do when I got my US line. A carrier can impose whatever limitations they want on an e-sim. It’s not a limitation of the e-sim technology
- rjsw 3y ago
  Feature phones are still a thing, they can't use e-sims.
- Cheepcheep42 3y ago
  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.
deleted 3y ago
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dghlsakjg 3y ago

Huh? 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

someotherperson 3y ago
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.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Mint.com: install app & sign in and load up the eSIM. And that's the hard way. Providers could just support a QR code that I scan with my iPhone.
  - someotherperson 3y ago
    I think there has been some misunderstanding. 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.
    - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
      This is a carrier imposed restriction. You can do it without cellular, via WiFi. I suppose they geo block it.
    - licebmi__at__ 3y ago
      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.
- ginko 3y ago
  >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? There's a good chance your physical SIM won't work with a phone bought in the US anyways.
  - callahad 3y ago
    ...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?
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      They are talking about carrier-locked phones which are still somehow a thing in the US.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  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.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    > Getting set up with an e-sim can be as easy as: download app/scan qr code, and provide payment info. But it's not. For something whose main purpose is ease of use, they didn't make it easy before trying to roll it out.
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      But it is. I said that because that’s literally what I had to do when I got my US line. A carrier can impose whatever limitations they want on an e-sim. It’s not a limitation of the e-sim technology
rjsw 3y ago
Feature phones are still a thing, they can't use e-sims.
Cheepcheep42 3y ago
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.

deleted 3y ago

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