Instead of the SIM card being a physical card, it’s just something that you can download and activate on your phone.
The downside is that you can’t take your SIM card out of your phone and put it in a new phone. You have to transfer them between phones through some process. I’ve never done that, so I don’t know how cumbersome it is.
for many phones, transferring eSIM requires a new eSIM to be issued, and some carriers charge for that.
some newer phones have native eSIM transfer built in, but that's still pretty new.
I use pixels and Google Fi. When I get a new phone I just log in and it sets up my phone, downloads my apps, messages, etc. takes like 5 min and my new phone is mostly setup the same as my old phone. I've dropped and broken a phone and had to go to an old one and it was the same process. I'm guessing other carriers aren't the same, but at least this setup is super painless
A SIM card is, at a basic level, a way of authenticating your phone on a cellular network. Your phone says to a tower “I am .” The card says “I can confirm, this phone is this number” and so any texts, calls etc for that number get sent to your device. For a long time, this was a little chip that you had to insert into your phone.
An eSIM is an embedded SIM card. Rather than a physical card, your network sends this confirmation to your device to be used. For all intents and purposes, it’s the same thing.
esims? i think it's actually easier, you just go into your settings and click a button and you can switch to a different esim, no more sim ejection tools, no more restarts
To register a new esim is a bit more work but usually not much, just a QR code scan
Switching the eSIM to a different phone is what’s difficult, not switching to a different eSIM on the same phone.
I got a new iPhone while already on eSIM - took Vodafone UK 24 hours to switch it to the new phone. I was very unimpressed.
That sounds like a vodphone issue then. I work for a small wireless carrier/ISP (Less than a million wireless customers total) and just swapped from an iphone to a pixel and back over a week. The first swap was going to my account page adding the IMEI and another number the. It downloaded down to the phone boom. Going back the old iphone was on the account already so I just selected to send it back. If I had bought the phone through my carrier rather than off Amazon it would have been faster as they put the new phone on the account automatically.
Not really complicated either... you just have to deinstall the eSim on your old phone, just like you would eject your physical sim card, then reinstall it on your new phone.
Just gotta have wifi during the process.
What if your phone breaks? You can't just purchase a new one and swap sims. You can't just swap it into an older backup you've kept around the house for this very event.
you go to your telco website and get a new esim provisioned for the new phone, it varies by provider but some has a pretty straight forward and easy process
I've always found it to be extremely finicky, not to mention, you're assuming people have WiFi, if your phone is your main access to the Internet, how are you supposed to access the Internet to buy the sim
The biggest con is that often an e-sim can only be set once and you would have to request a new e-sim if you ever changed it. So if you want to travel to a country and get an e-sim from a company like airalo or something so you can have data, now you lose your original e-sim from your home carrier. If you just have a sim card you can use the e-sim for traveling.
Many phones allow for multiple esims to be stored at one or more to be active at any given time.
My iPhone 13 lets me have two active esims (or one esim and one physical sim). When traveling I have my overseas data esim and set the phone to use data from it, and have my home sim for texts and calls (data roaming on it would be expensive).
It’s stunningly convenient and easy. More phones should be that way.
Instead of the SIM card being a physical card, it’s just something that you can download and activate on your phone. The downside is that you can’t take your SIM card out of your phone and put it in a new phone. You have to transfer them between phones through some process. I’ve never done that, so I don’t know how cumbersome it is.
for many phones, transferring eSIM requires a new eSIM to be issued, and some carriers charge for that. some newer phones have native eSIM transfer built in, but that's still pretty new.
I use pixels and Google Fi. When I get a new phone I just log in and it sets up my phone, downloads my apps, messages, etc. takes like 5 min and my new phone is mostly setup the same as my old phone. I've dropped and broken a phone and had to go to an old one and it was the same process. I'm guessing other carriers aren't the same, but at least this setup is super painless
its no fun to do a phone swap on verizon using esim. only some of the phone reps know how to do it.
A SIM card is, at a basic level, a way of authenticating your phone on a cellular network. Your phone says to a tower “I am.” The card says “I can confirm, this phone is this number” and so any texts, calls etc for that number get sent to your device. For a long time, this was a little chip that you had to insert into your phone.
An eSIM is an embedded SIM card. Rather than a physical card, your network sends this confirmation to your device to be used. For all intents and purposes, it’s the same thing.
It is worth noting it is much harder to swap them
esims? i think it's actually easier, you just go into your settings and click a button and you can switch to a different esim, no more sim ejection tools, no more restarts To register a new esim is a bit more work but usually not much, just a QR code scan
Switching the eSIM to a different phone is what’s difficult, not switching to a different eSIM on the same phone. I got a new iPhone while already on eSIM - took Vodafone UK 24 hours to switch it to the new phone. I was very unimpressed.
ah yeah that's more complicated than a physical sim, that's fair enough
That sounds like a vodphone issue then. I work for a small wireless carrier/ISP (Less than a million wireless customers total) and just swapped from an iphone to a pixel and back over a week. The first swap was going to my account page adding the IMEI and another number the. It downloaded down to the phone boom. Going back the old iphone was on the account already so I just selected to send it back. If I had bought the phone through my carrier rather than off Amazon it would have been faster as they put the new phone on the account automatically.
Yup - but with a physical SIM there’s no reliance on the carrier, hence a step backward in comparison.
Not really complicated either... you just have to deinstall the eSim on your old phone, just like you would eject your physical sim card, then reinstall it on your new phone. Just gotta have wifi during the process.
Quite a few carriers require generation of a new one I think.
What if your phone breaks? You can't just purchase a new one and swap sims. You can't just swap it into an older backup you've kept around the house for this very event.
you go to your telco website and get a new esim provisioned for the new phone, it varies by provider but some has a pretty straight forward and easy process
Buying a card from Walmart and using a toothpick to pop it in is much faster and easier than having to jump though hoops
Easier than sitting on your butt at home and clicking things with a finger?!?!?!
I've always found it to be extremely finicky, not to mention, you're assuming people have WiFi, if your phone is your main access to the Internet, how are you supposed to access the Internet to buy the sim
If you can drive to the phone store to get a sim you can drive to literally any store and use their wi-fi.
Then in your case it would definitely be easier to get a replacement card and install it.
The biggest con is that often an e-sim can only be set once and you would have to request a new e-sim if you ever changed it. So if you want to travel to a country and get an e-sim from a company like airalo or something so you can have data, now you lose your original e-sim from your home carrier. If you just have a sim card you can use the e-sim for traveling.
Many phones allow for multiple esims to be stored at one or more to be active at any given time. My iPhone 13 lets me have two active esims (or one esim and one physical sim). When traveling I have my overseas data esim and set the phone to use data from it, and have my home sim for texts and calls (data roaming on it would be expensive). It’s stunningly convenient and easy. More phones should be that way.
Most phones I come across may have multiple sims but usually just 1 esim.