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Article: I switched to eSIM in 2025, and I am full of regret (arstechnica.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 108 points 10 months ago (39 children)

This is a problem for somebody reviewing phones, but how much of a problem is it actually for the average user who will change phones once every few years? And will probably be doing so at a phone store where they can support it.

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  • [–] 34 points 10 months ago

    I think it's just highlighted by someone doing it regularly, it'll happen the same % of times when someone else does it, maybe more since they don't know the process.

    I also don't know how many people change phones in a store, I never have, but I'm not average. And even then, maybe a carrier store can help you, but I doubt the generic shop or branded supermarket can offer much support for an issue with a carrier.

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  • [–] 79 points 10 months ago (14 children)

    I haven't been to a phone store in 15 years

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  • [–] 57 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    for the average user

    points at Lineage boot logo

    not you

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  • [–] 20 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Speaking of Lineage...

    I wonder, how long will it be before you're not "allowed" to install esims on phones with custom firmware?

    Either due to the esim application not installing/running on modified firmware, or the phone will just not allow it.

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    If that stops Lineage from being practical on that phone, then fuck that phone in particular.

    If eventually, that is every phone, then grab a hotspot and get tethering.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago

    We are well on our way. The EU is holding the manufacturer liable if a cellphone radio is "modded", thus manufacturers are blocking the ability to unlock bootloaders.

    If eventually, that is every phone, then grab a hotspot and get tethering.

    I did have a chuckle at the thought of having a cellphone for your (modded) cellphone... but then I thought about it: "meh, yeah... it's not a bad idea. I'd do it."

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (4 children)

    In most countries, getting a phone in a store is something done only by people happy to pay lots extra for a little human help, surely? The average user now signs up online and gets a phone in the mailbox.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    If I asked my mom for her SIM card, she'd ask for her purse so she could attempt to find a credit card that doesn't exist.

    She has no idea how a phone works in any capacity. I'm not being insulting about it, I am informing you of blatant and honest truth.

    My cousins, people my age are a hard maybe, I know two family members who went in-store recently. They treat their phones like cars. They use them and that's as deep as it goes.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (2 children)

    That's not so informative without any idea of your age and thereby the ages of your examples.

    Many of them could still follow the assembly/card insertion instruction sheet with pictures that comes in the mail from the phone company, even without knowing which part is called a SIM.

    And maybe your area's phone stores aren't as notorious for overcharging as the UK's.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I'm not teaching a class, here, bud. If you need me to tell you that running LineageOS isn't somehow a skill equivalent to walking into a store, then we have some serious cultural differences between the US and EU regarding average luddite phone ownership.

    The stores don't charge for helping you, no. It's the same cost for service instore as out, at least in my experience. For all I know Tmobile started charging 'install fees' for putting sim cards in.

    America, age 37, nerd-coded

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    You're the one talking about LineageOS, not me. I'm only saying the average user now in most countries isn't walking into a store any more, but buying their phone online, having it shipped to them and following the pictorial setup instructions.

    Stores here don't directly charge for helping you, but they charge more for things: phones in store are often much more expensive than online (especially phone network shops - some of the broker shops sell closer to online prices), and they only sell a limited range of plans which usually don't include the cheapest ones. The days of networks selling their locked phones much cheaper than unlocked ones seem to be over, when you add up all the charges over the minimum contract term.

    Even the website of a phone company can be much cheaper than their own stores, and sometimes you can still get help from the stores if you have problems. The phone companies now all operate multiple brands and the brands without stores are even cheaper (Smarty and Voxi from VodafoneThree, Giffgaff from Virgin-O2, and so on).

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    Last time I went into a store was 3 years ago, specifically looking for an iPhone 13 mini as an upgrade to my iPhone XR. They didn't have any in stock, attempted to sell me a few different, more expensive devices, then just told me to try online.

    Ended up going with a different provider.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago

    I'm fairness the only time I remember being in a phone store in the last decade was because I got an esim when I got my new phone, phone company didn't send me a qr code to get the esim and I lost access to my account because I couldn't receive an SMS because my old physical SIM was disabled.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (11 children)

    I wonder how much of a problem it is when you lost the phone that had your eSIM. If the registration flow requires SMS authentication, how are your supposed to register your eSIM on your brand new phone?

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (9 children)

    The carrier can bypass that authentication, so basically the same process as if you had lost your physical sim. Show up at the shop in person with id.

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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    ...how is that an improvement over physical SIM then ;D

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    AFAIK, the only 'improvement' is that it takes up less physical space.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    you are supposed to be able to have multiple, 1 or 2 of which can be active, and switch between them whenever you want.

    but afaik that's only possible on rooted phones with openeuicc or another app like it, because by default only google's own app is allowed to handle esim configuration, and that has limitations in what it allows.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    When traveling you can pre-purchase an E-SIM and already have it loaded to your phone in advance of landing - avoiding the whole airport SIM purchase shuffle, or he holding off on using your phone until you get to a convenience store, etc.

    I use an E-SIM for my personal plan, saving the physical SIM for a work line.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago*

    I will never use an ESIM due to this. I have had by ass saved multiple times by being able to use a physical sim card when my device failed to work or i needed to be able to port a number.

    My last phone went for a swim, I changed phones just be removing the sim card, and putting it in the replacement phone. Easy 20 second process vs an hour trying to argue with customer service that I am the account holder, and no I can't receive a one time pin, the phone is toast then another 20-30 minutes of waiting for the towers to identify that the ICCID changed and that the new sim is actually allowed to communicate with them. The last time I changed my sim card on t-mobile, I didn't have roaming data for almost 30 days due to desync between the USC towers and Tmobile on if I was actually authorized to use the tower or not.

    Then back when I used MVNO's it was even worse. Arguing over device compatibility and identification when you lost access to the device was like pulling teeth. The agents never understood that broken means broken, and despite saying 4 times the devices either don't turn on or has no service, they still insist on trying to send a one time pin, because according to their end the phone is active on the tower somehow.

    Then there's benefits like when I put an s20 on total wireless 2 years before the company supported 5g devices due to the ability to use a physical sim. I upgraded to an s20 from an s9 after being told that both total wireless and red both supported 5g phones. Only to argue with both of them after I actually bought the device that they couldn't actually activate/transfer it onto the device. I just took the 4g sim card (which they previously said would not work on the device), and threw it into the s20, and then used that until I eventually swapped to a first party carrier.

    I could never use an ESIM, you lose way too much control over your device.

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  • [–] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    It is also a problem for us IT guys, when we need to migrate users from one phone to another it is super annoying to deal with eSIMs

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  • [–] 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    That’s odd, I just swapped phones. Old phone was eSIM, it literally couldn’t have been easier.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    The issue is often that the phones take a long time to download the apps the user needs, most of our users are on the go, and can't rely wifi, so they need mobile data, with a physical SIM we can easily tell them how to swap on their own, it is done in 10-15s, and can quickly be moved back, with an eSIM you have to dig through menus and hope it works, if not, the user is left with two phones without a SIM.

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  • [–] 27 points 10 months ago (6 children)

    Those of us who swap SIMs when travelling are also affected. I travel outside my country several times a year and must say that eSIMs sound like a good idea until you actually deal with them. Spending vacation time debugging an eSIM is an annoying distraction.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Can't your phone store multiple esims? I thought that was actually one of the selling points of the stuff.

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

    It's a software implementation though, so if you have a rooted phone or use another Android OS, you have limited options in apps that implement eSim for you.

    OpenEUICC is a good one, but sometimes requires magisk modules to work.

    I remember it took me half a day of fiddling to get my eSim working under Lineage.

    People forget that your phone supporting "feature X" means that even though it has all the hardware to do X, it still needs to software, which might not be part of the devicetree.

    For example paying for items with your phone's NFC does not happen because of NFC capability. There are no open source solutions to Google Pay. It's an agreement brokered between Google and Banks that allow the bankcard to be "cloned" and used via NFC, not the NFC doing any cloning of your actual bankcard

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    It can, but both my Fairphone and old pixel could have a physical sim and an eSIM. I daily drive both with my old US number and my current EU number. Can't have two active eSIM cards at once though

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  • [+] -7 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    This never happens

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    My parents came to visit my over xmas and installed Airalo to get a local SIM. Activation failed, the support AI bot re-issued the eSIM, activation failed again, it got escalated to human support, they asked for a refund, and 12 hours later randomly the phone popped up an "eSIM activated!" message. That would have sucked if you actually relied on needing the SIM on landing.

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