I've only ever had phones with at least one (regular/physical) eSIM, and a 'slot' for an eSIM for travel.
What are the pros/cons of only eSIMs?
Edit: I'm not questioning eSIMs, which I know can be handy: my iPhone SE3 is physical+eSIM. I'm curious about no physical SIM. If you can support 1-eSIM+physical is it a big deal to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
Pros:
- Super easy to get esims while traveling. e.g. in Mexico i downloaded an app while still in the airport and paid $5 with apple pay and instantly activated a 1 month esim.
- You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
- More secure. esims can't be cloned (e.g. sim swapping attack) or simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims.
Cons:
- If you get a new phone, you cant just pop your physical sim in. You need to go through your provider to transfer, which requires calling them and verifying your identity.
I actually dont see this as a con really, I see this as a security benefit. Since I only get a new phone every 3-4 years, the 20 min on the phone it takes to transfer is not a significant burden.
Which, at least with my provider, you cannot do while roaming. So if I break my phone while travelling, I cannot access my online banking until I get back home.
This can be done with physical+esim, which my iPhone SE3 has.
Is there a distinct advantage to eSIM-only, with no physical slot, for travel?
> - You can have multiple esimss. With physical sims you are limited to the physical number of sim slots on your phone, usually 1 or at most 2. With esim there is no such restriction.
If you already have 1-eSIM capability, would it be hard to go to >1-eSIM+physical?
IDK about only but it’s easier to get an eSIM setup ahead of time. It’s also easier to keep a bunch of esims handy vs physical sims. Guess it depends on your needs.
This is incorrect. eSIMs are no different from physical SIMs once provisioned. The only difference is that instead of you having a physical smartcard, there is now a JavaCard-compatible card (embedded on the logic board or emulated by the modem) that gets provisioned remotely.
SIM swap attacks have nothing to do with your physical (or emulated) SIM, they were always about a social engineering attack onto the carrier's staff to replace the (e?)SIM associated with your account. eSIMs actually do make this easier because instead of the attacker having to show up in person at a store to pick up a physical SIM they can skip that step and do the whole process online.
> simply removed from a stolen phone like physical sims
If this is an attack vector you care about, you can enable a SIM PIN. In fact, this also works with eSIM if you really want to. But beware, doing so means once a phone reboots it will not have a data connection so things like Find My iPhone/etc won't work.
I don't think this is true for all providers. I've never had to do this for T-Mobile for instance, it just activated without intervention.
I am sure there are downsides to eSIM but particularly for the average consumer who gets a SIM in their new phone and never changes it... there is probably zero difference.
I asked my provider to issue a new e-sim that I could use in another phone, but it asked me to verify my id by sending me a text message I couldn't receive because I didn't have a phone.
I couldn't buy a new phone without a new sim, because I had forgotten the pin of the card I needed to use, and the pin was visible on a website that was protected with 2FA.
So I bought a physical sim card from my provider shop (using my last physical 10 euros), then went to a used iphone reseller, who let me setup the phone before paying, so that I could use the phone to actually pay for it.
It was not fun
If you break your phone, you may lose access to the number until you return to your home country.
Other than that, it’s the same.
For most people esim is better
Sure you can transfer them while upgrading the phone to a new one.
The QR code you get when you purchase an eSIM is merely an access token to initiate the provisioning process. Some carriers may make these single-use, or attach extra restrictions such as fees if you want to get a new one, or restrictions they themselves don't know about like that you must be on an IP from your carrier's home country to reach the provisioning server (good luck debugging that if you're not already aware of it - and no, on-device VPNs won't save you as the OS will not use your VPN for this traffic).
Even the mechanism that allows you to move an eSIM from one iPhone to another requires carrier involvement, which they have to support (internally I don't believe it moves anything, instead merely requesting a new SM-DP code in the background and sending that to the new phone). It doesn't work for all carriers.
Oh and you already need to have some existing IP connection to provision the eSIM in the first place, so first-time provisioning is tricky. I'm sure there is a workaround for it, but again carrier support varies.
TLDR: it allows the carrier to interfere when provisioning or moving the eSIM which carriers can and do take advantage to make the process more costly/painful and discourage easily using alternative carriers.
