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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

Sorry, you can't.

The e-SIM provisioning process is under the control of the carrier. They give you a QR code (or SM-DP string) which you scan/enter, your phone then contacts the carrier and after some back and forth acquires cryptographic keys which are stored in the eSIM chip.

There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier. They may charge for this, or just be a pain in general and make it difficult or refuse for whatever reason.

I can see them taking advantage of this to prevent travellers using local SIMs for example - sure you can delete your eSIM and get a local one, but getting your own eSIM back will be difficult or outright impossible if you're still travelling (they may require physical ID verification, etc).

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> There is no way to extract these cryptographic keys and enter them into another phone. Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier. They may charge for this, or just be a pain in general and make it difficult or refuse for whatever reason.

Even worse, in many real cases. Let me give you an example, happened to me this October:

I get a new phone. I browse my carrier's website to find out how to transfer the eSim to the new one, but find nothing. I call them, they tell me it's impossible. I ask them to double check because this doesn't seem realistic - after one day of internal checks, they contact me saying they found a way! I just have to request to be migrated back to a physical SIM (costing me 15 EUR and 1 week of waiting), and when it will arrive I'll be able to migrate it to an eSIM again!

Isn't technology amazing?

This was in Germany, the operator is Congstar, an MVNO using Deutsche Telekom's network.

In all fairness, this is Congstar being shit, a low-cost MVNO. They could also be shit by locking your SIM to the first IMEI they see on their network, so the only difference is that they need to establish a porting process for eSIM but haven't done so.

It is noteworthy that Congstar is a brand of Telekom Deutschland GmbH.

Could Apple permit you to store multiple provisioned eSIMs on one device, and switch between via UI?

That’s literally how it works… You can have as many eSIMs as you’d like, I currently have 8 on my phone and can choose which two I want to have active at any time.

I’m not sure why nextgrid is constructing this weird technological strawman.

Apologies - I was not aware you can have multiple eSIMs stored. If that's the case it lessens the impact, though switching between phones is still a problem.

Not any more than with regular physical SIMs, if your carrier wants to be shit they can lock a physical SIM to a specific device too.

True - my point was that the carrier can't prevent you from physically switching SIMs and locking them at the network-level to an IMEI would cause backlash as it would break long-established conventions.

With eSIM, not only are they in control of switching eSIMs between devices but it also gives them a clean slate to introduce the aforementioned network-level restriction under excuses such as security (though again since they're in control of switching eSIMs they can just block it there or be annoying in other ways - some carriers already charge for reissuing eSIMs despite it being a completely automated process).

eSIMs significantly reduce the friction of switching between carriers and will inevitably force carriers to suck less. Especially in a world where people increasingly only care about data.

> Instead, you have to repeat the whole process and get a new QR code from the carrier

Utter nonsense. There's no technical requirement to get a new QR code, this is up to the carrier.

Why are there so many people spreading straight up lies in this thread?

Exactly. I did not wanted to respond anymore, as the downvotes discouraged me to continue the discussion. I believe the “they are taking our freedoms!” do gather more attention.

When I wanted to move to a new phone, I simply deleted the data profile from my old phone and scanned the QR code on the new one, as the provider suggested. It just worked.

This assumes the provider wants to be nice and make it that way - yours does in this case. eSIM however gives them the option to make the QR codes single-use and require payment or additional verification before giving out another one.

Some commenters here are correctly saying that the carrier could technically prevent physical SIMs from being moved between phones by restricting which IMEIs are connecting to the network, but that's not usually done and there's an established convention that SIM cards can be moved around. eSIM gives them a blank slate to start over and break that convention without much backlash.

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