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You've already acknowledged that most of the issues you encountered are specific to your phone or carrier. For example, eSIM works fine with 5G on iPhones and in my experience there is no delay to activate an account. I've set up multiple phones on eSIMs and never experienced something like that.

Regarding backing up, yes it would be nice if you could backup your eSIM alongside the rest of your phone contents, however the real solution is just making it easy to provision a new eSIM.

In my experience, if I need a new eSIM I just open the carrier app and reinstall it to the phone.

I think they've got a fair point, though, that a number of those issues with the eSIM reflect reliance on factors outside their control (for example, whether or not one's carrier has competent backend systems) where before swapping a SIM card was a physical action within their control. It's a frustrating feeling when a new technology takes something out of your hands in the name of convenience but, far from being seamless, actually introduces problems that are entirely out of your hands to fix.

The carriers are the problem, though. In many countries there's at most one eSIM carrier, some don't allow it for pay-as-you-go and their implementation is often generally poor.

There's very little a carrier can get wrong with a SIM.

I wasted a couple hours dealing with the fact that my carrier wants an ICCID to activate an eSIM, but iPhone eSIMs don’t have (or at least don’t show) an ICCID until after activation.

My carrier literally has a webpage explaining how to do it on an iPhone, and the page is blatantly wrong. Good job testing.

Does this ID change if you provision a new eSIM? Would it be worthwhile to activate an eSIM on my phone and write down this ICCID for safe keeping in the future? Is there any other way to get this ID without having an active eSIM?

There is an ICCID, that is usually burned into the eSIM. However, SIM and eSIM are actually a tiny embedded system with a rudimentary Java byte code interpreter and you can insert firmware to dynamically swap between the reported ICCID. Usually this is a trick employed by MVNOs to swap between profiles based on the available networks to select the MNO that the MVNO has a more favorable contract with.

For data-only SIMs while traveling, eSIMs are pretty great. I can just download an eSIM from an app and it's ready to go in minutes. Yes, it requires wifi or another working data plan to get started, but that's way easier than having to find a shop that sells physical SIM cards. If I didn't need to keep my phone number, I'd just stick with data only eSIMs. Unfortunately, I need to keep my phone number because a ton of banks and other accounts that I need to do business have required SMS-only 2FA. Recently, I bought a new phone while traveling and Google Fi wouldn't let me activate a new eSIM without returning to the US. If I would break my phone abroad, it would be an absolute nightmare. eSIMs shouldn't have this problem, but they do.

Park your number with a voip firm. You'll get SMS via email. Use local pay-per-use sims wherever you travel. You do not need to maintain a US phone plan to keep a US phone number.

Any recommended ones?

Recommend is a strong word since their UI is stuck in the pre-2010s, but voip.ms is cheap and generally good service.

And Acrobits Softphone is a reliable SIP dialer for Android which is very light on battery life.

Most MFA implementations will balk as soon as they discover you're on VoIP.

And they will.

Yup, I've got my 2005 phone number on VOIP, but I've got to keep a "normal" number for things like that.

https://xkcd.com/1129/

I was on Google voice for years and occasionally had something refuse to send verification texts to it, but I don't think I've had that problem since I switched to voip.ms

I lost my Google voice number after I eventually couldn’t find a cheap temporary place where I could use a US number to keep alive my Google Voice number.

You can pay $20 to Google to own a number. When we disconnected our landline, I replaced it with a Google Voice number connected to our wireless phone setup. It gets very little use now but is nice for automated calls from the school telling us a kid was late, schools are closed because of snow, etc.

You paid Google? Why'd you pay Google $20? That's $20 more than my number cost me. I mean, other than all the ads, engagement, and PII.

I signed up for my number in 2015, with a landline, because I had just purchased an Android tablet, with no SIM slot or mobile plan, so I decided that teh Goog was the best bet for VoIP for me.

You've got to guard your conversations on Voice, and don't mention forbidden keywords. Voice will instantly disconnect the call if it detects wrongthink.

Any articles or sources for Voice disconnecting calls? I've never experienced this

I now "own" that number and can port it out of Google if I wanted to. That was important to me in case they ever decide to shut down Google Voice.

I don't see how Google makes money on Google Voice, which makes wary of them shutting it down some day.

No, park your 2FA number on a 2FA mule[1] and forward the sms anywhere you like.

This solves the “voip number” problem.

[1] https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/

2fa mule? Kagi isn't finding anything for that term.

It means "to a dumb second phone that you'd use only for 2 factor authentication"

2FA Mule:

https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/

It's been 2 years since I read your initial comment on using an SMS mule [1], and I'm curious how's it going, you know, that phone you have plugged in at your office in a corner :)

No battery swelling?

I copied the idea and did the same, it's essentially free of cost to do so where I live, thanks to having operators that offer a pay-what-you-use tier with no fixed monthly cost. The line is just to act as a 2FA mule, so it means it costs nothing (save causing any kind of expense once every 6 months, but sending a single SMS does it, so I guess it actually costs something like 20cts per year)

Apart from the SMS Forwarder app [2] you suggested, an HN commenter [3] provided links to some FOSS alternative which I didn't get to try but should work fine and is ad-free.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28251107

[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.frzinapps....

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29711030

Not the parent, but I've used some app from F-Droid to fwd SMS to email. What I didn't thought about is what Samsung SW would aggressivly suffocate the app of any chance to wake up on the receive. Which led for it to be quite useless as a 2FA mule (delay is too long) and it requires a reboot every couple of months. It not that seriuous in ghis case, but if I would be in the need of replicating the setup I would do it with the Moto phone.

I use a 4g device connected via usb with smstools to call a python script that logs the message and sends a push notification.. :D

No, no battery swelling.

The only minor hiccup I have had is that at some point the devices decide that enough time has passed that there must be a software update available ... and I ignore the prompts to do so ... which is fine ...

... but then there was a power outage and when they powered back on they were in some update status where they weren't online until I clicked something ? I forget ... might have been an updated google legal agreement with the update ?

They are google pixel devices with stock OS load and no apps added (other than that SMSForwarder) but even still, had some logic for software update that produced a minor annoyance.

Good to know! Indeed some hiccups are expected. I don't need 2FA mule most of the time, but when I do, mine is an old phone flashed with LineageOS, no Google services at all, only F-Droid and otherwise manually installed apps.

Working well, albeit the Google login tends to give more problems than it should, in smaller and independent apps like these.

But I definitely observed that the one time that I left the phone plugged in for the most part of 3 months, the battery never was the same. It lost like a third of its capacity.

Futhermore, you can then install ACCA and set it to reduce the risks of battery issues.

https://f-droid.org/packages/mattecarra.accapp/

That's interesting, thanks.

Have you used it? Do you know if it's only the GUI for ACC (i.e. that ACC must be installed independently), or if it already embeds ACC?

> [1] https://kozubik.com/items/2famule/

"Expired: Monday, July 17, 2023 at 13:21:09 Eastern Daylight Saving Time" per Safari.

* https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=kozubik.com

Yes but what to do ?

I had a nice acme.sh toolchain and process and then this silliness:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36252310

... all for a simple site that never needed SSL in the first place.

(luckily I only ran acme.sh in a stripped down jail)

I foresee way too many risks with this approach to do it myself. I have a phone that I could plug in this way and leave in my apartment. But what happens when I'm abroad and it breaks for some reason, some update or power cycle or unforeseen crash, and then I'm stuck abroad with no way to confirm my identity. Plus it doesn't eliminate the need to pay for a phone plan.

I've had mild success using Any desk to remote control a phone, but that only works for app issues and not random power or reboot issues. you could slightly help that with a smart power strip to power cycle.. but only if you had a phone with no battery that still ran when plugged in. maybe if you even could remove all security so it doesn't require a pin on reboot ... but then you can't trust it for 2fa stuff

Twilio and a lot of other providers for SMS seem to block voip numbers.

> The phone is hardcoded to only support 4G via esim, although the phone itself supports 5G if you use a physical sim on the same mobile network

I suppose it's an operator problem. 5G with eSIM most certainly works on T-Mobile US. I've also had 5G working on AT&T Mexico eSIM when I was in 5G coverage area (very spotty). Can't tell about travel eSIMs (such as Airalo) as I haven't used those in areas with 5G coverage.

> Once provisioned, the mobile network doesn't actually activate your account for a few hours.

Worked nearly instantly for me every time I've tried. Definitely must be a sloppy operator or some error during provisioning.

There's another issue with eSIM: In Canada, all of the carriers offering it charge $10 to provision an eSIM. You get a little plastic card with a QR code on it, and once provisioned, it's totally useless.

Want to switch your phone? $10 and you have to go to the carrier physically.

The iPhone feature where you can transfer an eSIM appears to work with carrier support, and the carriers here I've tried all don't support it so the process fails.

My kids use e-sims from Orange France on their iPhones in Canada. 365-day great for kids that are always around WiFi, but need data once in a while. I basically pay for 5 gigs and it lasts a year. Roams on Telus, Bell, Rogers on 5G.

I think for 3 kids, I pay about 10% of what I would pay for them to have monthly plans from a Canadian carrier.

I've had similar experiences, although not quite as expensive. I think it was either 3€ or 4€ to get a new eSIM, which you would do by logging to the carrier's website, clicking a button and scanning the resulting QR code PNG. Absolutely nothing about the process warrants that cost and obviously the operator is blocking from using the iPhone-to-iPhone eSIM transfer tool.

I called up my operator before I decided to switch to another operator. Got a whole slew of excuses for it. "Transfers are blocked for security purposes." Didn't figure out a security benefit for the surcharge. "You'd have to pay for a new physical SIM card too", except I wouldn't because physical SIM cards are REUSABLE. Tried to use this line of reasoning against the operator by asking to not order a new eSIM but reuse the eSIM I already had, but no dice.

Thankfully I managed to find a phone plan that was cheaper than the one I had, so I fixed my eSIM issue and got slight savings on top. Of course after I signed the new contract, my existing operator decided to ring me up and butter me up again. At least this time they admitted that it was just pure rent-seeking and they surely could've given me a free eSIM. Too bad my mind had been made at this point.

Canadian wireless carriers and ISPs (Robellus[1]) suck tremendously. I'm not surprised that they managed to make eSims suck as well.

[1] http://www.realfairforcanada.ca

> In Canada

There’s your problem. Not much to do with esims.

No, it has everything to do with eSims. The fact that it is even possible to make the process miserable is proof enough.

No, canadian carriers are exceptionally good at making everything miserable, there is no technical solutions to a business wanting to create problems. If they could not make esims terrible they just wouldn't support esims at all.

What is most frustrating about this is that they insist on mailing the QR code card to you after you pay up on the carrier website. (as-in postage, in an envelope, arrives in 5 biz days).

Why not just show me the QR code on my computer right after I pay your fee? It's quite ridiculous.

That brings back memories of GRE score being mailed after you paid $25 (iirc). How it was only possible via “snail” “no way to track” mail to anywhere in the world. If it didn’t reach, I had to pay again, except in rare scenarios where an one time exception was made. I kept bagging them to email and that I’ll still pay, but nope! Only was to contact ETS was by phone for which I had luckily had a Google Voice number (thank you CallCentric).

Luckily European universities didn’t give much of a fuck about GRE or even TOEFL and just wanted a scan or photo copy if I had it - or a print or screenshot of the page which I could access by logging in. In one university after I was on call with a professor I was told - “no need for TOEFL score, I just talked to you in English and it’s good enough” or something on the lines of it.

The entire process kind of gave me some kind of closer peek into how education is treated differently in Europe, and in USA, and of course in my home country India.

It's insane. You can no longer pop your sim into your alternate phone (eg for testing). If you want to, that's $10. Want to switch it back? Another $10.

Let's go over these one by one:

> Scanning the QR code to install the esim requires internet - it can't activate the sim card to get internet unless it already has internet. Seems like a bit of an oversight!

Not an oversight at all. The key exchange has to happen online, as key material is generated on-device, not delivered in the QR code.

> Once provisioned, the mobile network doesn't actually activate your account for a few hours. Kinda takes away the benefit of 'one click and go'.

That is absolutely your operator's issue; I've been up and running in 60 seconds.

> The phone is hardcoded to only support 4G via esim, although the phone itself supports 5G if you use a physical sim on the same mobile network. Nobody on the forums has managed to make it work.

Which phone is this? I get 5G via eSIM on my Pixel 5, and it works fine on all 5G-capable iPhones too.

> If you damage the phone, there is no way to transfer the esim to a new phone. I assumed it would transfer over automatically as part of backup/restore, either via cable or cloud backup, but no.

Nope; the secret key never leaves the phone. Contact your operator and they send you a new QR, which for me took five minutes and I had the QR in my email inbox.

> The mobile network has no ability to transfer the sim over either. Apparently their software doesn't allow it.

See above.

> The only way is to transfer to a physical sim, wait for it to arrive, then mark the physical sim as lost, and then reorder an esim. Great - that takes 4 days, during which you have no service.

Sounds like you should pick an operator that doesn't suck quite as much.

Physical SIMs can also be and are segregated to a specific network e.g. it’s still possible to buy only 3 or 4G SIMs that are cheaper heck until recently even 2G only SIM packages were a thing.

As far as the other problems go it’s the same with physical SIMs again.

Nearly all physical SIMs today are provisioned OTA so it quite often can take 24-48 hours for your physical SIM to activate especially if you migrate your number between carriers.

The only way to get an “instant” SIM provisioning is to go to a large physical store even the smaller ones are pretty much the same as getting the SIM delivered to your house i.e. they take you through the same phone/internet based activation and provisioning process.

You’re also wrong about the internet requirement the provisioning system for eSIM does not require internet on the device for access the QR code is essentially an authentication code that combined with the IEMI allows you to register with a carrier.

You usually do need an internet connection on another device to get the QR code in the first place but if you can also use a checkout terminal or just get a paper print out of the QR.

> it quite often can take 24-48 hours for your physical SIM to activate

In my world, I land in an airport, purchase a SIM card and it works before I leave the airport (or the operator’s desk). It’s often that way with eSIMs purchased via Airalo.

The delay could appear when your transferring your number, but even then you can still use a temporary number until the old one overrides it.

Pre-paid SIMs are different they are usually pre-provisioned or have an expedient path since there is less KYC and other checks that need to be performed.

Also (at least for my iPhone 12 mini), you can only have one esim. I have a SIM for two countries and one of them has to be physical, which is unfortunate.

I have two on my iPhone 13 mini. One with 5g.

I was under the impression you could only activate one esim at a time, but store up to 6(?) on that phone?

I have 10 eSIMs on my iOS (iPhone 12) device currently, with one active eSIM and one active pSIM.

That sounds like something an overly eager and feared manager pushed through because it sounds nice, you know "eSim" and there was nobody to tell him / her it's a stupid idea or maybe there was, but got shut down.

Many organisations suffer this problem and there is really no good solutions to that.

> The phone is hardcoded to only support 4G (not 5G) via eSIM

Which phones and model(s)? iPhone (X/11/12/13/14)? Google Pixel Pro 6/7? Samsung Galaxy (S20 or upwards)? Huawei? Oppo? Sony? Xiaomi? Other?

My Vodafone eSIM wouldn't work on 5G. After a week of back and forth with customer service they said I was on the wrong plan, please give them more money to get 5G.

this is why apple spent time and effort on an area where most carriers and manufacturers do not. eSIM on iPhone are instantly transferrable, reconnectable, and available on setup of any logged in device.

Esims do not need internet or QR codes. A carrier can just push a sim to you as a notification.

Push how? Over Bluetooth/NFC? Or do you mean over the internet?

I’m not entirely sure how the mechanism works, I think it just gets pushed through GSM carriers around you?

I’ve recently had experience doing this.