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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

#81

Post by can16358p »

eloisant wrote: post #73

Something I don't understand: why eSIM or iSIM have to be hardware, why can't it be pure software, some credentials stored on the storage of the phone?

That's why I think too. We have secure enclave and all that for anything cryptographically secure and isolated. Just interface with that for the keystore/signing and have everything in software.

A possible attack vector? Perhaps if something's not coded correctly... which can easily be fixed with software update.

I'm sure there's more into this of course, but that should be the general motivation.

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

#82

Post by eloisant »

bilekas wrote: post #5

I feel really old thinking that i remember the model of sim cards that were credit card size and not shown in the diagram.

Not just old but early adapter I believe, because when cell phones became really mainstream it was already the mini-sim format!

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

#83

Post by bilekas »

vasco wrote: post #37
bilekas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't need to swap a physical thing to log into my bank on another phone if my main one dies. I'm not sure why this is the answer.

But imagine you have 2FA sms verification (horrible practice but prevalent) and your phone is dead. Sim swap out is helpful.

I don't approve of it personally, but it's a legacy method anyway.

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

#84

Post by coretx »

bjackman wrote: post #27
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…

Yeah AFAICT this article is just: Qualcomm is now a certified producer of eSIMs. They put them in the SoC. Everything else including the term "iSIM" just seems to be marketing cruft? Perhaps I'm missing some detail but it seems the only people who would have any reason to care about this would be Qualcomm's customers in the mobile OEM space.

Because it's in software, they can legally disable your phone and force you to buy a new phone every 3 year citing "security patches no longer being issued". Bye bye aftermarket firmware second life !

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

#85

Post by izacus »

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…

> 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!

In practice however, they can be a customer hating disaster. Some telcos here even charge like 30EUR to generate a new eSIM code when you swap out phones, others need physical visit of their office for the same actions and third throttle the amount of swaps you can make.

All issues that can be severe from normal users (think of a simple case of dropping a phone and breaking it - how much money and time do you need to spend to make a temporary loaner work?)

It's yet another venue how telcos use enshittening to lock in users.

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

#86

Post by franga2000 »

coretx wrote: post #84
bjackman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah AFAICT this article is just: Qualcomm is now a certified producer of eSIMs. They put them in the SoC. Everything else including the term "iSIM" just seems to be marketing cruft? Perhaps I'm missing some detail but it seems the only people who would have any reason to care about this would be Qualcomm's customers in the mobile OEM space.

Because it's in software, they can legally disable your phone and force you to buy a new phone every 3 year citing "security patches no longer being issued". Bye bye aftermarket firmware second life !

They could be doing this already if they wanted to. I agree they shouldn't have this ability in the first place, but this doesn't change anything.

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

#87

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> But it doesn't clarify that others (like Apple obviously) can't realize their eSIMs in their custom SOC, as far as i see.

Of course they can, all they need to do is pass certification.

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

#88

Post by DeathArrow »

Why is this a positive story? Downsides:

-it is more cumbersome to replace phones, as you have to move identities from phone to phone and get approvals by carriers and device makers instead of just replacing the physical SIM

-you can't just hand over your phone to someone else, you have to unroll yourself and enroll the other person

-you don't have anonymity and privacy since is no longer possible to use a prepaid physical SIM

And what are the advantages? Cost savings of maybe $1 for a pohone that costs over $1000?

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

#89

Post by kahnclusions »

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…

With eSIM when I buy a new phone I just open my provider’s app on my old phone and request a new SIM, then scan a QR code on the new phone and bam my new phone is setup using the same phone number.

You can have multiple eSIMs on the device and activate them when you need… for example travel SIM, or a SIM for your home country, etc. It’s way more convenient than physical SIM cards.

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

#90

Post by audunw »

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 it, or the company manufacturing it, having the ability to compromise its security.

I'm guessing it has just taken time hash out the procedure for integrating the iSIM.

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