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Swapping SIM cards used to be easy, and then came eSIM

• shlip 11mo ago
  Title should read "I had to switch to eSim [...]" well yeah, of course esim is shitty, as is everything imposed by big tech monopolies to their users without consulting or caring about what they really want. Did you think they were here for your wellbeing and not the money ?
  • ACCount37 11mo ago
    eSIM is specifically designed to deny user freedom. They are impossible to transfer from device to device by design, for one. Every single "transfer" has to be approved and signed off by a cellular provider in an online mode. They can deny it at will, or just neglect implementing it, and you can do nothing at all. It's pretty clear that when GSMA talks of "security", they mean "security of the business models". What does that mean for the users? It means they're getting fucked.
    • bcye 11mo ago
      What would be the use case for that?
      • ACCount37 11mo ago
        What would be the use case of being able to transfer a SIM card from one device to another at will, you mean? What kind of question is that.
        • ashray 11mo ago
          I'll post an example for the parent just in case they are honestly confused about use cases. Here is one that happened to me. I had an eSIM on my iPhone. My iPhone broke (screen became somewhat unusable, and the phone was stuck in a restarting loop). It was an older model phone so I checked the repair cost and thought I'd rather buy a new one. Bought a new phone. Now, to transfer my eSIM from the old phone to the new phone, I needed the carrier to approve. But I was away from my home country and on roaming. So I tried to call them. They needed me to use a verification PIN they would send via SMS on the old phone, to verify the transfer to the new one. Impossible since the old phone is unusable. Back in the day, I'd have just taken out the sim from the old phone and moved it to the new one. Easy peasy. The only other option in this case now was to visit one of their stores thousands of miles away. Eventually just ended up doing that when I returned weeks later but during this time I could not access several services due to lack of access to my number plus 2 factor codes being sent there. Moving a sim from phone to phone was seamless. Now the carrier needs to approve this swap. Even with two working phones sometimes it's a hassle and there will be delays while carriers decide to approve the move. There is a new feature that allows you to transfer eSIMs easily between phones but carriers seem to be holding onto their power in this regard and not every carrier will let their sims move so easily. This possibly requires regulators to step in and solve the issue - make it up to the user to move eSIMs. I would count on the EU to make this easier at some point. On the plus side, eSIMs are nice to be able to signup and provision them through an app. Helps with travel and roaming. So there's that too.
          • coderatlarge 11mo ago
            this carrier approval to move esim problem is more generalized on modern “smartphones”. unless you opt in to cloud providers holding your data there is no easy way afaik to migrate your authenticator apps to another phone. and a host of other authentication/authorization data is tied to the device in an opaque way. don’t get me started on apple’s unpredictable model of sending 2fa to some other “trusted” device which means tou never know what tou need to bring with you.
            • AlexandrB 11mo ago
              Google authenticator lets you move accounts easily using a QR code + phone camera.
              • tscherno 11mo ago
                But no way to backup to cold storage last time I checked. Took a picture of the QR code with another phone and printed it.
                • thaumasiotes 11mo ago
                  > Took a picture of the QR code with another phone and printed it. Why? Decode the QR code and store the text however you prefer to store text.
                  • coderatlarge 11mo ago
                    i wish there were a straightforward way to export a file of some sort that i can backup without creating yet another special case to manage.
              • coderatlarge 11mo ago
                that’s good to know thanks but creates more special cases to manage if i just want to backup my stuff so i can manually recover when i need to (on lost device say).
        • sroussey 11mo ago
          Probably one most people never ask, though should be obvious to those on this forum.
    • waweic 11mo ago
      esim.me, 9esim and "sysmocom eUICC for eSIM" are eSIMs in the SIM card form factor that you can load the SIM profiles onto and use them in any device with a SIM card slot (and of course transfer between devices). In my opinion, that's the best of both worlds.
      • ACCount37 11mo ago
        It's good, but they're expensive as fuck for what they are. The best option would be a software-only eSIM with full transfer support, IMO. But we don't have that, because GSMA says we can't have nice things.
        • mbirth 11mo ago
          > It's good, but they're expensive as fuck for what they are. Yep, I remember a time where you could extract the Ki and IMSI from legit SIMs and write that to a bog standard Goldwafer card (which were also used for cable TV hacking) including some SIM emulation software and thereby clone the SIM. That was like 30 years ago and the only thing that changed in SIMs since then is better encryption.
          • ACCount37 11mo ago
            If you had the relevant keys? You wouldn't even need a blank card. You could just make a software emulator and force the smartphone modem to use it. The obvious issue being: it's pretty hard to acquire raw key material. Most vendors refuse to sell it, and the workarounds are messy.
  • onesociety2022 11mo ago
    If what you say is true, why would Apple ever force a switch to eSIM? I’m now less likely to buy a new iPhone because I don’t want to deal with this eSIM fiasco. It’s to their detriment. If their goal is to sell more phones, they would want to eliminate all friction to switch to a new phone. So what you are saying doesn’t add up.
    • FireBeyond 11mo ago
      Less space occupied, more battery, smaller phones. It wasn't the only reason, but was at least one of the stated reasons for the jack removal.
      • mbirth 11mo ago
        They also promoted this with the iPhone 17 eSIM-only variant. More space for battery.
• neuroelectron 11mo ago
  I had zero issue upgrading my iPhone from one eSIM device to the next. In fact, I even forgot that I had to do anything, it just did it.
  • 0cf8612b2e1e 11mo ago
    Spending money to upgrade from model X-1 to the latest X is the well trodden happy path that big tech will actually make work. Author is describing less common workflows which do not receive the same attention and so become a mixed bag when the financial incentive is not so clear for the manufactures.
  • loloquwowndueo 11mo ago
    I upgraded from an iPhone 11 to a 17 and was dreading having to sign in to my carrier’s web site to get an eSIM QR code. I was surprised to see that the phone migration process took care of that - at the end I had the new phone with an eSIM and my usual number, and the old phone with a deactivated SIM card. Super convenient.
    • ValentineC 11mo ago
      > I was surprised to see that the phone migration process took care of that - at the end I had the new phone with an eSIM and my usual number, and the old phone with a deactivated SIM card. It's nice to know that you're on a telco that supports "eSIM Quick Transfer", but that's still a feature that telcos need to explicitly support.
• LeafItAlone 11mo ago
  I recently bought a device through my carrier (secondary device, secondary carrier; luckily not my primary device) to replace my existing one. Old device was still physical SIM new device only eSIM. I paid for it in a store, but it had to be shipped because they don’t have it in stock, even though it was in stock on their website (including after I left). It arrived late, the day before I was set to travel. The rep said I could just turn it on and follow the prompts and it would auto activated. It didn’t. Luckily it didn’t deactivate the old SIM. At least it didn’t until I called tech support and got their help. They said hang up, restart both devices, and the new one should work. Of course it didn’t work and both devices were now unusable. Had to go into a store and have them sort it out there. On the flip side, being able to have a primary I never change and a secondary that I swap out for international travel has proven to be extremely valuable to me. So you take the bad with the good.
  • coderatlarge 11mo ago
    in some countries (ex china) local carriers won’t provision esim for nonlocally made phones. including iPhone not specifically made for their market.
• mayanraisins 11mo ago
  My wife and I recently switched from T-Mobile to Noble Mobile and it was painless with an eSim. I didn’t have to try to track down my sim slot key, I didn’t have to go to the cell store or wait for a sim card in the mail, I just followed their onboarding instructions and made the new eSim my default. It took about 5 minutes.
  • ifh-hn 11mo ago
    > I didn’t have to try to track down my sim slot key, This made me laugh.
    • jondwillis 11mo ago
      Why? Because you can use pretty much any slim pointy object you can find?
      • ifh-hn 11mo ago
        Yeah, pretty much.
      • ValentineC 11mo ago
        Most small paperclips work, I think. I was even offered paperclips to keep at airport SIM counters before.
      • wolvoleo 11mo ago
        Yes and with some brands like Sony you can just use your nail.
• delta_p_delta_x 11mo ago
  > We gave up the headphone jack. We gave up the microSD card. Some people might have given it up. I personally own a Sony Xperia phone, and intend to buy another Xperia next year, which will almost certainly still have both. In fact Sony is the one manufacturer that returned to a headphone jack after having removed it for a while. It might be more expensive than the competition, but this is my voting with my wallet.
  • worldsavior 11mo ago
    But why? What's wrong with Bluetooth?
    • delta_p_delta_x 11mo ago
      Worse quality, latency, potential to lose one (or both) earbuds, having to faff with batteries and charging and cases (and charging the charging case) when I can just... plug it in, bam, music in my ears. The knotting is a small price to pay for the improved quality and convenience in every other way. What's wrong with analogue audio?
      • anonymars 11mo ago
        Something I read recently which I think is interesting food for thought: Did ditching the headphone jack increase the number of people in public who just play their music / talk on speakerphone, because now the alternative is much more complex and expensive compared to simple 3.5mm wired headset? Before proclaiming that Bluetooth is in fact simple and cheap, consider how your situation may differ from that of the perpetrators
        • sjsdaiuasgdia 11mo ago
          My own memory and current experience on this point is that it used to be far more common than it is today. I remembered there was a South Park episode where Cartman was being a stereotypical self-absorbed person walking around with their phone on speaker. I looked it up, and that episode came out in 2013. At the time, most phones on the market had a 3.5mm jack. Yet people not using headphones/headsets was an experience common enough to be turned into a joke in the show. I don't think there's much correlation between 3.5mm jack availability and using a phone's speaker output in public. "Simple" as you've used it is open to interpretation. I personally held on to wired headsets longer than most of my friends and family. You know what I don't miss, now that I've preferred wireless for a few years? Untangling the cable. Accidentally catching the cable on something and having an earbud ripped out. Picking lint out of the jack. Staying conscious of the length and positioning of the cable in the context of my own movements. Other than the BT connection process, which is only complicated if you're fortunate enough to own multiple devices and headphones/sets to connect to them, wireless can be a lot "simpler" in actual usage.
• reverserdev 11mo ago
  Some random person I met dropped their phone in a river, just after arriving in a foreign country. He bought a new phone, but getting back to his phone number was not easy or possible for him (while in a foreign country). If he had an eSIM it would have quickly solved the problem for him. Instead he had to wait until he got home to pop in a new SIM card. I learned from this experience that maybe eSIM is a good idea and I switched immediately upon hearing this person's story. Did I miss something?
  • skylurk 11mo ago
    If you damage your phone, as opposed to completely loosing it, the sim card is almost never damaged. So changing phones can be done without any customer support or web forms or calls to service provider etc. Actually, every phone I ever had eventually got replaced this way, I am still using the original sim card from years ago.
    • reverserdev 11mo ago
      I should have clarified that he dropped the phone in the river AND he did not attempt to get it back from the river, thus the SIM card is considered lost as well :)
  • throw-the-towel 11mo ago
    > If he had an eSIM it would have quickly solved the problem for him. Except many carriers have you jump through hoops to activate an eSIM on a new device. Here in the comments one person has to receive a new QR over snail mail.
    • reverserdev 11mo ago
      Indeed I became aware thanks to this thread! For me it was 10 mins through my provider's app (and I was also doing it internationally)
      • ValentineC 11mo ago
• xvilka 11mo ago
  eSIMs are perfect for travel. The only downside is that many phones still allow only one or two active eSIMs. Would be great to have all of them active - be able to receive SMS and calls at least.
• waweic 11mo ago
  Technologically, eSIMs are pretty nice. The electrical interface between the phone modem and the eSIM is the same as with a real SIM card, and the eSIM can run the same applications as a real SIM card, so at this point you can buy smartcards that can be swapped between devices and run eSIM applications. esim.me, 9esim and the "sysmocom eUICC for eSIM" (seems to be the most open/friendly at this point) are some of the options. Most of them offer an app for management, but there are also standardized interfaces. SIM cards have always been secure elements that the provider trusts. With an eSIM, you can already own that secure element and the provider can provision it with their application. You can even have the applications from multiple providers on the same physical secure element. The major advantage is now that the expensive and time-consuming part of provisioning a new mobile service (sending out a physical SIM card) can be replaced with a few standardized API calls. This is cheaper (which makes the extra cost some providers charge for an eSIM look quite silly) and a lot quicker, which enables new business models for short-lived cell connection services. A world where all cell service providers offered eSIMs would be slightly nicer. But manufacturers removing the option of swapping the secure element is very annoying at the same time.
  • maipen 11mo ago
    I think the major advantage for consumers is being able to securely ensure their cards never breaks and device restarts make their sim always available, no need for pin. Even if someone steals your phone they can’t disable your SIM card unless you don’t have a pincode. I’ve had a SIM card constantly fail and require me to put my pin to unlock it multiple times in the same day. If someone wanted to call me they would not be able to because I didn’t know it was off.
    • Rebelgecko 11mo ago
      eSIM is also great for travel. There's a lot of competition on price and it's easy to check esimdb to find the cheapest carrier that meets your needs for a given trip. Download the eSIM in advance and you're good to go as soon as your plane lands
      • 11mo ago
• abigail95 11mo ago
  Totally different experience. Especially when traveling for work, being able to just show up in a country, download an app, and have a working local number within minutes is fantastic. I have 6 eSIMs on my iPhone, two are active. No stuffing about with swapping physical hardware just because I've temporarily relocated myself.
  • mikepurvis 11mo ago
    I've found this as well; totally painless to add a destination data plan just before jumping on the plane. And even switching my local plan was pretty straightforward when a promo offer came in from a competitor. That said, I'm sympathetic to the stance of the article's author. I recently had a scare with my iPhone 13's battery not being able to charge (it recovered itself eventually) and I realized it was going to be a hassle to switch to another phone if I couldn't get the old one powered on enough to run the esim transfer, much less the whole OS migration.
    • abigail95 11mo ago
      I guess I'm lucky enough to only have had providers where it would take 0-3 hours to create a new eSIM profile. Compared to 3-7 days for a new SIM.
      • kiwijamo 11mo ago
        Note that if you just have a broken phone you don't need a new SIM, you just pop it out and pop it in the new phone. So 1min for a physical SIM vs 0-3 hours to create a new eSIM profile. I know which one will be faster. :)
        • mikepurvis 11mo ago
          Yes, that was the situation for me exactly, that basically if I lose or break my phone, I obviously have other devices that can access 1Password and my email, but I'm locked out of anything that requires SMS or an authenticator app to 2FA. Definitely made me feel that at the very least I should be getting a yubikey so that I can have authenticator codes across multiple devices.
• thedanbob 11mo ago
  As a counter-anecdote, I've had far more trouble over the years swapping physical SIMs than eSIMs. You'd think that going between two phones that use the same size card would just work, but in practice that isn't (wasn't?) always the case.
  • yoavm 11mo ago
    Never saw an issue moving a SIM from one phone to another (living in Asia, Europe and the US). However last week I got a Airalo E-Sim and apparently it's not possible to transfer it to my new phone.
• HotGarbage 11mo ago
  Verizon (and their MVNOs) eSIMs are the worst. Registration is tied to IMEI and enforced via the eSIM's EID. You can't use one if those "physical" eSIMs because if you give Verizon a donor IMEI during registration, the EID of the eSIM doesn't match and activation is rejected.
  • EvanAnderson 11mo ago
    I was using Straight Talk prior to the Verizon acquisition and I've been holding-on to my one remaining pre-acquisition SIM like a rent controlled apartment. I've moved that SIM through a number of phones since I got it back in 2013. I absolutely hate that, moving forward, I have to get Verizon's permission to switch phones.
  • BenjiWiebe 11mo ago
    Verizon even does something like that with physical SIMs. My father got a new phone and we moved the SIM card to it. Some things worked, some didn't. Called customer service, they said you can't just move the SIM like that! Ended up switching to AT&T.
• ifh-hn 11mo ago
  eSIMs are another way for big tech and government to track and identify you. Gone will be the days you could pop into a shop and get a burner.
  • bob778 11mo ago
    Those days are long, long gone (15 years ago) for most of the US/UK/EU/Australia and parts f Asia. You require government ID to purchase which gets tied to the IMEI.
    • hexbin010 11mo ago
      Not true in the slightest in the UK. You can walk into many shops and get a SIM for £1 in cash, no ID, as easy as buying a Mars bar
• sixhobbits 11mo ago
  I love e-sims for travel and easy switching, but I also switched my primary number back from an e-sim to a physical sim after I realised what a pain it is to use it in another phone (my provider requires a fresh QR code sent by post to my registered address in order to do the switch - huge pain when my phone went in for repairs so I had to switch twice within two weeks, switching to a secondary phone, and then back to normal phone once it was repaired).
• walidthedream 11mo ago
  I am quite annoyed by the people who don't see the issue with eSim because "they never had an issue" with it. It's like having one murder down your block and stating that you don't see the issue because nobody attempted to murder you so far. ESim are backed up as part of iCloud backups, had one dodgy carrier in Europe (Lyca) who never activated my eSim so I switched back to a new carrier but I had to get a transfer authorization from Lyca. Guess what , since I was no longer a customer I was sent to hell by their customer support. Best joke that it was impossible to remove on my iPhone. It was part of the backup, a reset attempt did not solve it so I had to drive 200km to an Apple store to get a hard reset and the Apple genius advising me against restoring my data "otherwise it would retrieve the faulty ESIM back in your phone" !!!
  • renewiltord 11mo ago
    Yeah, eSIMs are built for high trust locations. I just use Google Fi and they’re pretty decent about it all. This whole “switching a carrier” business is kind of pointless busywork I don’t do any more.
    • starkparker 11mo ago
      Odd how it works out, but my work Pixel 8 on Google Fi forgets its eSIM about once every three Android updates. Usually takes 15 minutes to an hour to work itself out, with no indication as to what happened or why. Turned me off completely from eSIM-only devicess and Google Fi for personal use. Hell, as I write this my on-call phone just notified me that its eSIM isn't valid. Good thing I'm not on call yet!
      • renewiltord 11mo ago
        Classic Google. I’ve used the eSIM on iPhone flawlessly across numerous countries for 8+ years now. It’s typical that their stuff wouldn’t work on their own hardware.
        • ffsm8 11mo ago
• tomashubelbauer 11mo ago
  I tried using a work eSIM as a secondary SIM to my personal physical SIM on my iPhone in 2022 or 2023. I was taken aback by how poor the experience was, both on the iOS level and the eSIM technology level. At that time I reckoned it's probably like 10 years too early and I don't think I will be giving an eSIM (primary or secondary) a shot sooner than in the 2030s.
• BoredPositron 11mo ago
  Main as traditional sim, esim for travel.
  • kiwijamo 11mo ago
    I agree that seems to be the ideal balance. Retain the flexibility of being ablen to easily swap your home SIM, but also retain access to eSIMs as a option when travelling. I still use physical SIMs when travelling as it's still easy to get a physical SIM in many countries. Dubai I got offered a free SIM at immigration(!) and in Singapore there were cheap SIMs for sale post-Security. But I imagine that there will be other countries where eSIM may be a better option.
• Yizahi 11mo ago
  My colleague had a very hard time moving her European esim (Play) from one iphone to another, because by then she moved from the city where she registered it initially. She had to come back in person and even then it only worked after a second visit, because she had to bring basically all her documents to verify her identity to the operator. Meanwhile I just swapped boring old plastic card in a minute, while staying at home. I will stay away from esim for a while, maybe processes will mature in a few more years. At least until dual-sim phones are available.
• deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
• izacus 11mo ago
  My telco requires that I receive an SMS on my eSIM to move it to new phone so... yeah. It's amazing if the phone for whatever reason doesn't work and that then requires a long customer support call that might not work. The direct phone-to-phone transfter the devices offer is also blocked on the carrier. Another issue I had was (travel) eSIMs failing to provision because the carrier didn't whitelist my phone brand/model. The QR code was spent, my money gone and customer support nowhere to be found. I've never had such issues with pSIMs in decade before. It's ridiculous.
  • parliament32 11mo ago
    > requires that I receive an SMS on my eSIM to move it to new phone So there's no CS path for lost/stolen/destroyed phones? That doesn't make sense, I'm sure it's a very frequent occurrence.
    • Yizahi 11mo ago
      When I lost my phone with a physical sim, I had to go to the operator' office and answer a quiz about which three different numbers I've called and received and when exactly did that happened. Apparently I've failed and they demanded that I would bring a phone box with IMEI sticker on it (yes, the one which all "influencers" tell us we don't need to keep) and then they restored me my sim card. I imagine the same process would be required for the lost esim.
      • parliament32 11mo ago
        What country was this in? Quizzes and phone boxes sound.. odd. I've never heard of anything more complicated than rolling into your telco's nearest kiosk with your ID and them just provisioning a new one for you.
        • Yizahi 11mo ago
          Lost phone was in Ukraine. We have both prepaid sim-cards and contract sim-cards. Contract would work like you've describes. Prepaid is more complicated.
• birdman3131 11mo ago
  It seems nobody recalls how bad it was back in the day. CDMA phones (Mostly carriers like Alltel, Verizon and sprint.) did not have sim cards until 4g/LTE. Before that to migrate phones you had to get customer support involved. AT&T and other GSM based carriers had sim cards on their phones and it was so much nicer. Nobody has been able to convince me that esim is not just going back in time 15+ years. We moved to sim cards for a reason.
  • etrautmann 11mo ago
    I agree, although two counterpoints. One is that carriers would just lock the phones in the US anyway. Second is that eSIM is easier while traveling.
    • a456463 11mo ago
      for now.
• ufmace 11mo ago
  I disagree with the overall point of the article. I guess maybe they're worse for professional phone reviewers, who switch phones all the time, but I'm not one. In my experience, I think about two-thirds of the time I've gotten a new phone and wanted to switch to it, the SIM card size had changed, so I needed to get a new one anyways, which could only be done by mail order, so took a few more days. And about half of the time the same SIM card did physically fit, something else went wrong, like the APN names wrong, carrier didn't want to let it activate, RCS failed to work, all of which are virtually impossible to troubleshoot. IMO, the dream of universal SIM card portability has been dead for at least a decade, if not longer, and started long before eSIMs came out. The eSIM on my current phone Just Worked as far as activating. I haven't tried switching to a new phone with it yet, so I guess I'll have to see how well it works when that happens. Clearly there are cases when both are better. eSIMs are nice for being able to switch carriers immediately, get set up in a new country you're visiting smoothly, and recover the number from a physically lost phone. Physical SIMs are nice if you want to try out a different phone model, assuming they support the same SIM size and you can find the little tool. And also if your phone is seriously damaged but not physically lost. So not everyone necessarily loves them, but I don't think it's a case of the big bad big tech companies are enshittifying everything.
  • bartilg 11mo ago
    Most of the issues you described, such as carrier registration issues, are just as likely with eSim as they were with physical SIM cards. The difference is that you can't swap out the eSim physically, which was a pretty reliable way of getting around misconfiguration. This isn't really an indictment of eSim as a technology, but the reality is that Telco's are incredibly slow and inefficient, and by removing a workaround for their incompetence, it can make the problem worse.
• forty 11mo ago
  What I don't get is that if he wants a physical sim and microsd card, why does he purchase a phone without those? By doing so you are confirming the phone manufacturers choosing to remove the physical sim cards that they made the right choice. Personally I chose to purchase phones with physical sim card and microsd slots.
  • jerlam 11mo ago
    The author works for a tech blog, and has to review new phones.
    • forty 11mo ago
      Indeed after checking the article again he does mention that he had to test those Google phones. At least it's a problem their readers won't have :)
  • deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
• jbverschoor 11mo ago
  Same as passkeys
• kevincox 11mo ago
  The problem with SIMs is that they aren't just credentials and config. They are full applications. Imagine if you needed to run a custom program to connect to every wifi network. It is bonkers. It is absurdly complex and insecure. A "SIM" should just be a keypair. The subscriber use it to access the network.
  • digitalPhonix 11mo ago
    It’s more complicated because it has to include logic about which network to connect to and how to tunnel back to the original provider (or partner) while roaming. So it’s more like: which network to connect to, keys, fallback network selection logic and tunnel logic to get authorisation on a non-home network
    • kevincox 11mo ago
      That's a good point. That is what I meant by "and config" in my first sentence. IIUC if the keypair was a certificate with a few other fields foreign networks could give you some basic communication with your provider and decided if you should be allowed to use this network and if/how to tunnel you back to the home network. But the main point is that it should just be data that the user can port around to different devices as they see fit and that they can trust not to do malicious things.
      • digitalPhonix 11mo ago
        It’s not just config though (unless you consider logic to be config). When you’re roaming, the sim applet has to generate a path back to its home network based on request/responses with the networks it can see and their partners (and their partners’ partners etc.) It’s effectively multi-hop peer discovery and I don’t think you can encode the general case logic for it as just config. Edit: as a (rather niche) example, FirstNet sims run a different applet to AT&T sims despite nominal running on the same network because they have special logic to use more networks if they are in an emergency area.
        • 10mo ago
• secondcoming 11mo ago
  My min spec requirements for a phone are 5G, physical dual SIM support, and a 3.5mm audio jack
  • Zak 11mo ago
    I'm curious as to why 5G is on the requirements list. 3G made web browsing viable. 4G made streaming video viable. I haven't seen any new applications enabled by 5G on end-user smartphones.
    • shibapuppie 11mo ago
      Latency and throughput from a multi-thousand (literally, in the age of IOT and M2M) user network, massive MIMO and beamforming that LTE doesn't support, etc.
• neelc 11mo ago
  The funny thing is, I used eSIM on a Pixel 3, since it was the easiest way to activate on Sprint. Now, no big carrier will use a Pixel 3's eSIM. But then on Sprint, they tried to copy the CDMA activation system on LTE whereas everyone else just used SIM cards directly. Sprint was very progressive on eSIM even if they were slow to VoLTE. My Pixel 3 moved to a physical SIM due to switching to T-Mobile 3 months before the merger, and I've mostly used physical SIMs before the Pixel 10 Pro outside of international travel. I avoid MVNOs as my primary service because of the specter of eSIM-only phones, and that was pre-Pixel 10. And yes, if my Pixel 10 Pro had a physical SIM card slot I'd use it.
  • a456463 11mo ago
    i refuse to use pixel 10's for this reason.
• deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
• tezza 11mo ago
  Had a nightmare getting a holiday only e-sim in Australia Couldn’t set up easily because no wifi then I just simply could not cancel the damn thing… It required being in Australia, and like the article needed a SMS code and the support was only contactable Australian working hours… who wanted the SMS code again. So once back in Blighty there was no way… had to cancel the credit card to stop payments So you are at the mercy of the competence of the provider
  • IshKebab 11mo ago
    What did you need to cancel though? Most travel eSIMs are pre-paid and time limited, not subscriptions. (Not that that doesn't suck; I'm just surprised at having a subscription in the first place.)
    • kiwijamo 11mo ago
      Might have been a local provider eSIM perhaps -- rather than one of the 'Gloabal' eSIM poviders.
  • deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
• PebblesHD 11mo ago
  My experience with eSIM has so far been quite negative. I’ve upgraded phone twice since being forced to use one by my carrier and it’s been a pain both times. The initial setup of scanning a QR code was nice, why is every subsequent SIM change a 10 step dance in an app (or worse a support call) rather than one phone showing the QR and the other scanning it? Once this phone needs updating, I’ll be swapping carrier to one that has regular SIM cards.
  • mbirth 11mo ago
    There are also SIM cards you can upload eSIM profiles to, now.
• 0xbadcafebee 11mo ago
  Fwiw you can buy phones with both physical SIM + eSim. Personally I wouldn't go without that in a new phone as it gives you the most flexibility.
  • hexbin010 11mo ago
    For now
• pan69 11mo ago
  The way telecommunications works needs a complete overhaul. IMHO it needs something similar to a domain name system where you register (and own) your phone number and control which provider your eSIM is pointing to (like DNS). But so many industries are rooted in control it would be nearly impossible to make any meaningful change.
  • precommunicator 11mo ago
    there is the e164.arpa domain, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number_mapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number_mapping
• whalesalad 11mo ago
  I just abandoned AT&T (finally) and transitioned to US Mobile (on VZW) in about 10 minutes thanks to eSIM. New iPhone's don't even work with a regular sim card any longer. Seems like most of the complaints in here re: eSIM are around how a specific carrier deals with it and less about the technology itself?
  • ValentineC 11mo ago
    > New iPhone's don't even work with a regular sim card any longer. Many countries still sell iPhone 17 series with physical SIM slots.
    • kiwijamo 11mo ago
      Indeed I have a iPhone 17 Pro with two SIM slots with support for eSIM if I want to use it. If Apple goes eSIM only in our country like they have done in some countries, I'll go back to Samsung.
      • ValentineC 11mo ago
        Two physical SIM slots, so a sold-in-China iPhone? I thought those didn't have eSIM at all.
• gsuth 11mo ago
  The only eSIM issues I’ve had have been in the US. Some carriers use single-use eSIM QR-codes. So you need a new one for every swap. In Europe and Canada I’ve always been able to reuse the eSIM QR I got initially. Have I just been lucky or has anyone had problems outside the US?
  • a456463 11mo ago
    This used to be possible, IIRC. Not anymore tho
• thedougd 11mo ago
  I'm surprised there's no mention yet of carrier activation fees. Isn't that half the point for carrier's? They can bilk you for another $36 for the privilege of issuing a new eSim for your new phone.
• n8m8 11mo ago
  I transferred my number from Mint Mobile to Visible 8 months ago or so. I tried to at least. They initiated the number transfer before accepting payment from me. Their iOS app was bugged and their web app had no way to pay. I engaged support and they escalated to engineering. Still had no phone number or cell access for 3 days, with an upcoming trip planned. Ended up getting them to transfer it to US Mobile which has been fine. Probably works a lot of the time but it’s a shitshow.
  • overfeed 11mo ago
    On the upside, your phone can be thinner now and the down time gives you, the chance to admire its aesthetic without distraction.
• decimalenough 11mo ago
  On the other hand, international roaming has become so much cheaper now that swapping SIMs when you travel is no longer necessary. The legacy carriers still try to fuck you over, but MVNOs and dedicated travel SIMs offer amazing rates: I can get a year of roaming across 120 countries for around US$15.
  • remus 11mo ago
    I've also found this a big plus. Being able to get a data only SIM for whatever country you happen to be in within 5 mins is very convenient.
  • ValentineC 11mo ago
    > I can get a year of roaming across 120 countries for around US$15. Which plan is this? That sounds pretty awesome to have handy at all times. I'm assuming it's probably just 1GB or so though.
    • decimalenough 11mo ago
      https://www.amaysim.com.au/international/roaming https://www.amaysim.com.au/international/roaming A$25 gets you 2GB for a year, there are beefier versions too.
      • ValentineC 11mo ago
        Looks like that's on top of the monthly subscription fee, so I guess it only makes sense for someone wanting an Australia number on top of it.
  • wolvoleo 11mo ago
    There's also BNESIM who say they don't expire at all. I've only had one for a short time so I haven't tested that but so far it lives up to the promise.
  • Nextgrid 11mo ago
    It's a year of roaming of bottom-of-the-barrel backhaul, whose speeds and latency could make a 56k modem jealous. It is down to pure luck whether you get a route that works well enough to be usable. You are always better off buying a local prepaid SIM at your destination airport.
• t1234s 11mo ago
  One thing I realized about eSIM is your device needs internet access (either WiFi or another SIM) to get the new eSIM working. While that is usually not a problem, I imagine some people run into issues.
• lisbbb 11mo ago
  There must be some axiom about how corporations will eliminate every form of useful removable media, making customers more beholden and enslaved.
• axus 11mo ago
  My friend's eSIM experience with Tello was pretty good. Their kid got their first phone with an eSIM, and it was stolen a few months later. They were able to transfer the number to a new phone from the Tello website.
• anodari 11mo ago
  I use eSIM a lot during travels. My last phone doesn't came with eSIM support and I bought an eSIM adapter. It's nice because you switch it to another phone like a normal chip.
• EvanAnderson 11mo ago
  I bought my parents their first smartphones back in 2023. I got unlocked iPhone SE3's w/ physical SIMs. I was quite pleased. My father recently had a problem w/ the phone showing SIM-related error messages. He called the carrier and they "helpfully" switched him to an eSIM. The best laid plans... >sigh<
• Youden 11mo ago
  For what it's worth, this is entirely a carrier problem and has little to do with the technology. Various people and the article have outlined some bad experiences but to give a contrasting example: Digital Republic, a local MVNO here in Switzerland, allows you to replace your eSIM by simply logging into their web portal with TOTP-based 2FA and clicking a button. No SMS, no contact with support, no reidentification. In theory, all carriers could do this.
  • WhyNotHugo 11mo ago
    I only have experience with two carriers in NL and they’re the exact opposite. No QR code, only an iOS app which needs to be installed on the phone using the plan. My mum was visiting from abroad once and I had to download the app on her phone — which required me to first log into the App Store with my Dutch account. Another app that could have been a QR code.
  • ajb 11mo ago
    The flaw with the technology is that it is designed so you need the co-operation of your carrier, when previously you did not. Indeed, for the first versions moving a sim profile could not even be initiated independently by a user, but required them to contact support. Now there is the "device change" protocol which can be triggered by an app on the phone, but I think it still requires the co-operation of carrier servers.
    • venusenvy47 11mo ago
      This is especially bad in the US, where the government doesn't like to force companies to implement consumer-friendly laws. It was such a great thing when GSM SIMs were introduced, to avoid the carrier lock that was so common in the early days of cell phones.
    • wolvoleo 11mo ago
      > Now there is the "device change" protocol which can be triggered by an app on the phone, but I think it still requires the co-operation of carrier servers. And it won't work if your phone is broken, while a regular SIM could still easily be removed.
• teddyh 11mo ago
  The first time I heard about eSIM, I assumed it was a scheme to make switching phones and providers hard again, but I had no idea the situation was this dire.
• pjmlp 11mo ago
  Which is why I will keep using SIM cards for as long as they are around.
• exabrial 11mo ago
  eSim is fine, SMS "authentication" is once again the f#?*ing problem. Its going to take congressional action before we can get rid of this menace. All we're doing is half-ass offloading credit and identity checks to cellphone carriers, which do this, and by having a cell phone, you've probably been through an identity and credit check.
  • mbirth 11mo ago
    Still beats a specific sum or $0.01 transaction with a code appearing on your bank statement. ;)
    • exabrial 11mo ago
      The'll literally do anything except actual security.
• didntknowyou 11mo ago
  there will be a point where esim will be forced on everyone, because having to swap sim is bad for tracking people
• a456463 11mo ago
  Not only that... horror stories of eSIM transfers getting stuck and losing the phone number. Nobody is talking about this
• aristofun 11mo ago
  esim is a brilliant idea with terrible brain-dead level implementation. If I can’t take my esim away from a phone and plug it to another one as easy as physical sim - there is zero point in having this bullshit. Just link my cell plan to IMEI or something.
• wolvoleo 11mo ago
  Totally agree. I swap phones a lot and it's a nightmare with eSIM. For example I sometimes use an old phone when I go hiking or to a big festival. Better to have that stolen or broken. Some providers even charge money every time you swap. Also, if I would drop my phone and break it I can simply remove the SIM and stick it in a backup phone. Can't do that with an esim either without the carrier cooperating. Luckily all my current used phones still have two sim slots. It's something I select for but I'm sure eventually it will become harder. Sure for a one month travel SIM it's super handy but I don't want it for my main number.
• kappuchino 11mo ago
  I purchased physical eSIM Multicard. It worked quite easily, so now I can handle esims in a virtual/physical way. And I know what you might think: Isn't that defeating the purpose? No, it is not. I can recive a digital simcard activation, render it on a physical card and use it in any phone. Thats perfect. And yes, once the phones without a sim-card slot come ... we'll see.
• Gerald_Malloy 11mo ago
  [dead]
• QuantumNoodle 11mo ago
  I am not positioned well to speak to it but a coworker who has spent decades in telcom said that another problem is the certificate authority that holds/controls the certificates to provision these sims. Just the consolidation of who is involved in securing the sims. With physical sims, only your carrier has the encryption keys to be able to provision (and run e.g. a java program on the sim). With esims, that is not as tightly controlled. Coworker recommended I read about the "sim jacker" exploit, but I have not yet. If anyone is curious, I pass it along.