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Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

neilzone.co.uk

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Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#3
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

One announce with eSIM is that you can’t move them freely, despite being advertised as equivalent. Depending on the provider it can get quite complicated (physical visit in store, fees) to move to another device.

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#4
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

quote from TFA "Since I want to use the SIM with the integrated WWAN modem of a laptop running Linux, I was keen to see if I could get this all to work using Linux and Free software."

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#5
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

I can't speak to anyone else, but I have a phone about a year too old for e-sims to have been commonplace, but I still need to travel, and services like airalo (global sims to go) are basically e-sim only -- so my secondary sim slot is a reprogrammable eSIM.

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#6
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

You may find yourself in that situation if you have a device that only supports SIMs, and you can't use any of the cheap travel esim providers with it. For travel, you would replace your local SIM with the 9eSIM, and be able to switch providers depending on destination. The difference can be huge in some countries, where a local provider's travel plan can be 30 to 50 USD, while a equivalent on an ESIM provider is just $4.

I live in such a country and have parents with older phones who can't use esims, so the value is obvious to me. :)

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#8
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

Chinese iPhone has no eSIM support (they have dual SIM instead), IoT stuff like alarms tend to use SIM slots, LTE/5G routers tend to use SIM, etc.

Until eSIM provisioning for embedded devices is sorted out and popularized there will be plenty of reasons to adapt to a regular SIM.

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#9
post #3
post #2

I like the initiative and I’m not against experimenting, it’s fun. But why would you ever want an eSIM in a SIM device, I’d assume it’s more often the other way around

One announce with eSIM is that you can’t move them freely, despite being advertised as equivalent. Depending on the provider it can get quite complicated (physical visit in store, fees) to move to another device.

Could one make an all-software sim card emulator which would enable this?

Or does the esim spec have some kind of DRM to require you to use physical hardware with an embedded yet secret-to-you key?

Re: Using eSIMs with devices that only have a physical SIM slot via a 9eSIM SIM car

#10
I wish I knew if this would have helped me on a recent trip out of the U.S. In preparation, I upgraded my older, low-end smartphone to one with a more recent version of Android, NFC (for tap-to-pay), a headphone jack, and support for two physical SIMs.

So when I arrived at my destination, I was able to purchase a 30-day SIM for a local phone number and data, but my primary SIM was useless outside of the U.S. so no access to my primary phone number (I ended up using WhatsApp a lot). My carrier (Boost Mobile) advertised an add-on for "Global Roaming", but despite non-trivial time spent reading and talking to them on the phone, I got merely a vague impression that only an eSIM would have allowed me to continue to use my primary number out of the country. Would this solution have worked for me?

Meanwhile, I still have the (now deactivated) second SIM in my phone, hope that is not a security risk of some kind.

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