SIM cards are a relic of an age where multiple people had to share a single phone, and the cards themselves were enormous. These days, SIM cards are tiny and technically unnecessary thanks to the rise of eSIMs.
These virtual SIM cards were meant to make using a cellular connection about as easy as logging in to someone’s Wi-Fi, while removing all the physical SIM card headaches we’ve grudgingly learned to live with. The thing is, for every problem eSIM technology promised to solve, it brought its own as a replacement.
eSIM promised frictionless switching, but carriers kept the friction
A new invisible prison
The most exciting promise of eSIM technology was that you’d be free of physical SIM cards linking your phone to a specific network. In the past, for example, when I traveled abroad, I had to buy a local SIM card at my destination airport rather than pay the extortionate roaming charges of my contract provider. I’d put my contract SIM in the hotel safe, or otherwise ensure that I wouldn’t lose it. Then swapped back when I got home.
With an eSIM, that process is indeed much better. I can even sign up with an eSIM service like Saily, which offers seamless switching when you visit certain countries without the silly roaming costs.
But, how little friction you have when setting up or switching between eSIMs is still entirely up to the provider in question. So, in many cases, you still have to jump through numerous hoops when activating and managing eSIMs. Even worse, if you have a carrier-locked phone eSIMs from other networks still won’t work.
Moving your number between phones is now more complicated
It’s a joint decision
I just switched from my old iPhone 14 Pro to a new Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and, as usual, the process was as simple as popping the SIM out of the old phone and putting it into the new. My number is tied to that SIM card and as long as the SIM itself is functional, I can keep going without any help.
But with an eSIM if my old phone is broken or stolen, it complicates things significantly, and in many cases just a regular transfer from one phone to another can involve multiple steps that can even require a call to customer support. Of course, since eSIMs remove the security of a physical SIM it’s necessary to have some friction in place to prevent virtual SIM-swap fraud. And, of course, physical SIM swap scams happen too.
Maybe it’s not a huge deal if you’re only changing phones every few years, but for a certain group of people this extra friction is a good reason to avoid eSIMs.
The idea is still good, but the ecosystem isn’t ready
Caught in the SIM paradigm
In the end, the idea of eSIMs is a good one, but in practice it’s not yet ready to fulfill the promise of a fully digital cellular access system. At the very least, we need some sort of universal standard for what the sign-up and transfer process is for eSIMs.
Ideally, there should be no reliance on a third party to stand in your way, and a device-to-device eSIM feature should be standard in my opinion. In particular, moving eSIMs from iPhone to Android and vice versa needs to be a simpler process.
Carrier restrictions that have come over from physical SIMs to eSIMs need to be rethought. Switching between eSIMs on the same device could do with some more refinement, if you ask me.
To be honest, what I’m really hoping for is a system that isn’t just a digital copy of how physical SIM cards operate. I want a future where you can switch on a phone, scan for available carriers and just sign up with a username and password. Just like Wi-Fi in a coffee shop. We’ve moved beyond needing SIM cards and phone numbers as factors for authentication. With technologies like passkeys now a reality, there has to be a better way to handle mobile subscriptions.
