The author seems to have a rather idealistic view of this. At best eSIMs were a way to cut costs for the manufacturer by leaving out the SIM slot, socket, and supporting circuitry. They were always supposed to be a trap for the user though.
eSIM promised frictionless switching, but carriers kept the friction
They never promised frictionless switching. Whereas with physical SIMs you just remove one and either put it in a new phone, or replace it with a new SIM, eSIMs require interacting with the carrier to coordinate pushing the config to the phone, with all the attendant headache, and additional friction, of doing so.
Moving your number between phones is now more complicated
Well, yes, you no longer have control of the process.
The idea is still good, but the ecosystem isn’t ready
The idea was never good, but the ecosystem is exactly where carriers want it. The extra hassle “encourages” users not to make changes.
That’s interesting stuff, thanks for the links. I was under the impression that eSIMs were more integrated than that. That makes the whole eSIM nonsense even more ridiculous, as the manufacturer isn’t even saving much.
The author seems to have a rather idealistic view of this. At best eSIMs were a way to cut costs for the manufacturer by leaving out the SIM slot, socket, and supporting circuitry. They were always supposed to be a trap for the user though.
They never promised frictionless switching. Whereas with physical SIMs you just remove one and either put it in a new phone, or replace it with a new SIM, eSIMs require interacting with the carrier to coordinate pushing the config to the phone, with all the attendant headache, and additional friction, of doing so.
Well, yes, you no longer have control of the process.
The idea was never good, but the ecosystem is exactly where carriers want it. The extra hassle “encourages” users not to make changes.
As far as it seems, that one should be the same. Just with the chip soldered-on instead of having a SIM slot.
Here’s a guide on XDA forum on how you can just solder eSIM chip onto regular SIM contact pads and manage the eUICC with OpenEUICC Magisk module on OnePlus 11.
Osmocom reports some devices may recognize it as internal eUICC if the OS has LPA software.
By the way, there’s also lpa-gtk, based on lpac which allows use of eSIM on some Linux phones.
That’s interesting stuff, thanks for the links. I was under the impression that eSIMs were more integrated than that. That makes the whole eSIM nonsense even more ridiculous, as the manufacturer isn’t even saving much.
I just had to buy a new phone because the SIM reader of my old one stopped working and the repair fee was exorbitant. Esim would have been great.
Never ZenFone again.