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Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

arstechnica.com

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Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#181

Post by silisili »

ksec wrote: post #172
glitchc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iSIM is a standard defined by the GSMA standards body. Qualcomm did not make up the term.

I have largely given up arguing for / explaining anything 3GPP related on HN. Also disappointed it is the top comment.

I've always found that space rather isolated, for whatever reason. We read daily about yet-another-run-js-on-the-backend tool, but rarely see happenings in the mobile world.

I for one would much appreciate anyone taking time to shed light. And as someone who can also say dumb things, I also appreciate being corrected/educated.

Not that either is your job, just listing my feelings as an avid reader.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#182

Post by sangnoir »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #7

This looks like paid Qualcomm PR, for the following reason. From the article, it looks a lot like Qualcomm trying to coopt the eSIM success now a few years old, by saying the electronics of iSIM are a custom block in their silicon, not a separate small chip. But it doesn't clarify that others (like Apple obviously) can't realize their eSIMs in their custom SOC, as far as i see. > Qualcomm says "the new iSIM is fully…

> This looks like paid Qualcomm PR, for the following reason

Ars Technica does not do paid articles. They put a disclaimer to that effect on car reviews when a manufacturer pays for flight and hotel costs.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#183

Post by 0x7ce »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #65
Reason077 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "But it’s disappointing all round. I absolutely love how easy it is for me to buy a new phone, swap in my old SIM and I’m instantly using my old number." In theory, with an eSIM it's even easier to swap in your old SIM because you don't have to deal with the physical SIM card. Especially so if you don't have the physical SIM because it's lost or whatever. In my experience it's super frustrating to have to wait for…

> In theory, with an eSIM it's even easier to swap in your old SIM because you don't have to deal with the physical SIM card. Especially so if you don't have the physical SIM because it's lost or whatever. In my experience it's super frustrating to have to wait for a new SIM to arrive in the mail because you lost it or the old one is faulty! "Even easier" until eSIMs become commonplace or the default, and then manufa…

[dead]

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#184

Post by zarzavat »

asimpletune wrote: post #53
thedays wrote: post #2

eSIMs are less convenient and less flexible than regular SIM cards - will iSIMs be any different? How many iSIMs will a phone support? Will they support dual iSIMs or triple iSIMs so I can use one mobile number for work, another for my personal life and a third to use when I'm travelling overseas and want to avoid expensive roaming charges?

I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I know people who traveled for months, and they have half a dozen eSIMs on their phone. When they enter one of those countries, they just toggle the sim to active and it’s good to go. They do this all the while having a USA physical sim as well. This on iPhone btw.

Okay but how do you get local prices if there is no local eSIM? The best you can hope for is a travel SIM which may be multiple times more expensive than a local SIM.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#185

Post by officeplant »

lxgr wrote: post #158
worewood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because doing that on a phone with a physical SIM does not have a plausible justification. But with a software-based solution, they can argue that due to the lack of updates your device is now vulnerable and your SIM can be cloned, spoofed and so you should get rid of it. With a physical SIM those hacks are not possible even if I'm on a 20 yr old dumb-phone, because all the auth logic resides in the SIM itself.

> With a physical SIM those hacks are not possible even if I'm on a 20 yr old dumb-phone, because all the auth logic resides in the SIM itself. Not nearly all parts of authentication and encryption happen in the SIM, and older generation phones are regularly deprecated (most recently for CDMA in the US and 3G in Germany for example, but also for non-VoLTE-capable devices on some networks in the US).

>most recently for CDMA in the US and 3G in Germany for example, but also for non-VoLTE-capable devices on some networks in the US

This is quickly turning into all networks. I'm seeing a lot more people running into VoLTE issues now in dumbphone and digital wellbeing groups that are picking up old/cheap LTE capable phones to try out the lifestyle. T-Mobile was the last to fold and start whitelisting even in the MVNO space where usually we don't run into problems. There are cheap VoLTE capable phones that are available, but its become an easy way for carriers to thin out older devices from the networks.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#186

Post by ozymandias12 »

kramerger wrote: post #115
coretx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only french companies producing them and the entities who are involved in pushing SIM replacements aren't as interested in mundane things such as marketshare, money etc. as you might think. Don't forget this one for example: https://theintercept.com/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/ I don't think the french abuse their SIM-powerposition, otherwise they would not force states like Palestine into using weaker encryp…

We are discussing two completely different issues :) If you ever worked in telecom, you know for the fact that the SIM companies have sabotaged and vetoed every attempt to get a sane eSIM or SIM-free standard. And nothing against the French :) , it just happens that the two largest and most agreesive companies in this area have French connections (Thales and Gemalto)

>If you ever worked in telecom, you know for the fact that the SIM companies have sabotaged and vetoed every attempt to get a sane eSIM or SIM-free standard.

Care to link me to any credible/juicy article where I can actually read on this?

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#187

Post by officeplant »

Reason077 wrote: post #17
chamakits wrote: post #4

This seems like an inevitability; since eSIMs are already here, and manufacturers are going to be thrilled to have fewer moving parts. But it’s disappointing all round. I absolutely love how easy it is for me to buy a new phone, swap in my old SIM and I’m instantly using my old number. As painful as transferring everything else is with new phones, at least I easily keep the same number. With this (and I’d guess with…

> "But it’s disappointing all round. I absolutely love how easy it is for me to buy a new phone, swap in my old SIM and I’m instantly using my old number." In theory, with an eSIM it's even easier to swap in your old SIM because you don't have to deal with the physical SIM card. Especially so if you don't have the physical SIM because it's lost or whatever. In my experience it's super frustrating to have to wait for…

iPhone 13 user in the US here. ESIM's have been both nice and a complete pile of shit. Not a single prepaid service I've tried supports transferring ESIMs between iPhones yet. Instead of just moving a physical SIM between phones I'm stuck in a webchat line for 30-45 minutes waiting for a rep to help move the eSIM. It's especially frustrating when you juggle phones for testing purposes.

Even worse I ran into an issue lately where a carrier I thought about moving too but decided not to accidently ported my number to their service. (in store error). Which left me unable to even dial carrier services, something you can usually do with a SIM still in the phone.

On the plus side, I needed emergency phone service after my phone number was stolen, and I was able to get on public wifi and buy prepaid service with a new prepaid company and register an ESIM in minutes since it was an all new line.

ESIMs have their benefits, but between ESIMs and VoLTE whitelisting it really feels like US carriers are trying to drag us back to the shitty old days of cell service lock-in and carrier phones. None of which usually hurt people with flag ship devices, only people hunting for budget unlocked solutions they can drop any SIM card in and go.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#188

Post by azernik »

audunw wrote: post #90
shalmanese wrote: post #25

Can anyone explain why eSIM was the stopgap solution and we didn't go straight from physical SIM to iSIM? What special requirements does a SIM card have that it was easier to put it on a seperate chip? Now that we've moved to iSIM, does this remove the artificial limitation on the number of SIMs a phone can support? Can I buy a phone in 2030 and load it up with 50 different PAYG SIM cards?

As I understand, the SIM is designed by special trusted companies, with special security requirements. It's easier to meet those requirements when the SIM is a separate chip that the company making them have full control over. When you integrate it in the SoC, some of those requirements (tamper protection) will apply to the whole SoC, and you have to integrate the SIM module on the SoC without the company designing i…

You don't need the tamper protections to apply to the whole SoC, you just need the trusted element (TPM, SE, whatever you call it) to be physically isolated from the rest of the system and include tamper protections.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#189

Post by AnthonyMouse »

bilekas wrote: post #9
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #3

Why isn't this a bit of generic software that can run on anything?

It's a physical storage about the carrier. as far as i understand it's more convenient for carriers to onboard clients and also for users in general if a phone dies for example you can swap it into another. There are CDMA enabled phones that do not need a SIM card but they're a pain to transfer to another carrier. At least today.

That applies to a physical SIM card, but why is it needed for some eSIM/iSIM that can't be physically separated from the device? At that point it should be done entirely in software.

Re: Qualcomm wants to replace eSIMs with iSIMs, has the first certified SoC

#190

Post by jjtheblunt »

ksec wrote: post #172
glitchc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iSIM is a standard defined by the GSMA standards body. Qualcomm did not make up the term.

I have largely given up arguing for / explaining anything 3GPP related on HN. Also disappointed it is the top comment.

disclaimer: not sure why it is or was top comment either, but i did work for several years both at Qualcomm on a custom soc block and on extending V8 to use a new architecture, then several years at Apple in hw also. So i do know what you mean, and i do wonder what is up with the article, but presume you similarly know Qualcomm's contentious relation with Apple, historically.
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