I got bit by this when I bought a new iPhone recently, apparently the carrier "didn't allow" eSIM transfer so I had to go get another eSIM on my carrier's website.
How does Android protect against this? The carrier somehow disallowing it?
How does Android protect against this? The carrier somehow disallowing it?
And additional SIMs are below 10 bucks.
A more general remarque so, I get it that sometimes companies monetize a tad too much. But then nobody is working for free, no service comes without cost for the provider and we all have to make money to pay our bills. Hence I do not get the "they are doing it onpy for money" attitude, especially on a site like HN with a considerable number of people making litteral FAANG money, money that comes exactly from these practices.
As always, be careful not to confuse the sample with the distribution. The commenter you are replying to is not necessarily one of those people. Also, their statement might be matter-of-fact, not a condemnation.
I didn't read it as "they're doing it only for money". That indeed is perfectly understandable. I read GP as saying, they're being customer-abusive asshats.
We all need to make money to pay our bills and such, however there's a subtle but important difference between selling some good/service/labor in exchange for money, and abusing the customer to extract money from them. eSIM, per GP, is designed very much for the latter case.
As someone who designed quite a few public systems like this, I can recognize one that's built with users in mind and one that's built with profiteering in mind.
There's no reason for eSIM to not be easily transferrable between devices like pSIMs are. There's no reason that the QR codes with provisioning tokens can't be reusable and revokable like pSIM ones. There's no reason that eSIM provisioning servers work on whitelist principle where they deny all phones the carrier doesn't profit from.
And yet now we have all that. And before (at least here in Europe, I'm aware that US citizens are very used and defensive about abusive business practices by their telecoms) we didn't.
AT&T already has a whitelist based on IMEI that works for pSIM too. https://redd.it/trfw5r
Indeed there is none:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212780
> Use eSIM Quick Transfer on iPhone
> Some carriers support SIM transfers from your previous iPhone to your new iPhone without needing to contact them. You can also convert your current physical SIM card to an eSIM.
The whole page is full of what eSIM can do, but it seems carriers are not too happy about that as many block things that should be outright possible.
There are tons of weird things that are impossible just because carriers, e.g I have a phone that can do eSIM or pSIM, I have a tablet that can do mobile, eSIM or pSIM. I have a nice data plan for the phone, and it is eligible to share it with a watch and/or a tablet. Such a hypothetical watch that I don't own would be eSIM, and be able to share the data plan but somehow the exact same case for the tablet can only be done via pSIM, neither can I convert its pSIM to an eSIM, which is allowed for the phone. It makes no sense.
I've also had actual costs being charged when eSIM provisioning failed with "error -2" or whatever during travel and then carrier support refused to do anything about it (after taking my money for the card of course).
eSIM didn't make that policy, your carrier did.
I've needed to go from a full-size SIM to a mini to a micro to a nano over the years. Each time was a new physical SIM, each time was more of a "transfer" to the new SIM card.
The pretty different situation, the one izacus was complaining about, is when you take your active SIM out of one device and put it into a different device. eSIM broke this for them.
Provisioning an eSIM should be as simple as logging into your carrier's app or website and clicking a button or scanning a QR code. If it's any more complicated than that, your carrier sucks and you should start the porting process immediately. They're obviously customer-hostile and aren't deserving another month's subscription.
The reason I originally replied is because you said "it's not like eSIMs created or enabled that policy".
Even as a single policy, it affects a lot more situations now. eSIM enabled a big expansion of scope. And "different size SIM or if a SIM was broken" is significantly rarer than changing phones.
I don't even need to go to any location, I just need someone to send me a QR code.
It is extremely helpful and a huge time saver.
The only good use-case (for the user) is buying travel eSIMs.
But it all depends on the carrier now - I heard stories of carriers who won't send you the QR code, instead requiring you to drive to their store so they can show it to you in person "for security", defeating the whole purpose.
The old operator used the week to make me 3 increasing discount offers. Had I switched just for economic reasons I could have cancelled the operation on Saturday just before the scheduled transfer at Monday noon and saved a bit of money.
> From 1 July 2019 as a result of new rules from Ofcom, In the UK a customer can request a PAC without having to speak to their provider by texting PAC to 65075.
So it's more recent than I thought (the requirement, the 'donor-led' nature it mentions and ability to do it by text has definitely existed longer at least with willing networks) and UK thing postdating leaving the EU.
> Porting of numbers and their subsequent activation shall be carried out within the shortest possible time. In any case, subscribers who have concluded an agreement to port a number to a new undertaking shall have that number activated within one working day.
> In any event, loss of service during the process of porting shall not exceed one working day.
> The porting of numbers and their subsequent activation shall be carried out within the shortest possible time on the date explicitly agreed with the end-user. In any case, end-users who have concluded an agreement to port a number to a new provider shall have that number activated within one working day from the date agreed with the end-user.
My legalese is not good enough to understand what this means. The original text from the 2009 Telecoms Package[2] is worded slightly differently. Maybe member states failed to achieve the original intent and it was weakened to the current wording (as indeed, it takes longer than a day in many EU countries).
1: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... article 106, paragraph 5
2: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A... article 30, paragraph 4
Once you have the new SIM the transfer is pretty quick.
The problem you are describing is therefore a regulatory one, not a technical one.
That means I assume they are paying roaming rates to the local providers.
Actually I take that back, shady shops will sell you a SIM that can't be activated.
Things do change, so I did a quick internet search. Found plenty of websites with information on how to purchase and activate sim cards.
https://www.phonetravelwiz.com/buying-a-sim-card-in-germany-... https://abrokenbackpack.com/germany-sim-cards/
many others.
In that case customer identification is commonly done via the post office's Postident system (either at a physical post office, or online via video) or via some alternative video chat system, and those might not work for all passports from all countries worldwide.
Which countries? Of the few countries I traveled to, the cheapest esim (by using a esim comparison site) is cheaper than local sims for any reasonable amount of data (eg. 3 GB for a 2 week trip). The local sims sold at the airport might be "cheaper" on a per-GB basis, but they come with absurd amounts of data that you couldn't possibly use (eg. 30GB) so they are more expensive in actuality.
I always use prepaid as i hate nasty contract surprises and also because its actually cheaper here with most carriers!
> Although carrier support is still limited,
Nope. eSIM is crap on android too.