French President Emmanuel Macron fiddles with two smartphones (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Over the years they have become increasingly smaller and in the near future it is likely that they will no longer be seen because they will be replaced by virtual cards, with advantages and some limitations
In 1991 the first SIM cards to be inserted into cell phones to make calls were the size of a credit card. Over the next thirty years their size has shrunk considerably, just like that of mobile phones, and today a “nano” SIM is one fortieth the size of the original version, so much so that it is not very practical to handle and transfer from one smartphone to another. ‘other. However, SIMs will not continue to get smaller because they are disappearing, as we know them, giving way to eSIMs.
There And in the word eSIM it refers to the word “embedded” in English, and gives a good idea of the difference compared to classic SIMs. Instead of having to physically insert it into the phone after receiving it from a telephone operator, an eSIM is built directly inside it and is later set up to connect to your operator. It is not a recent technology: it was introduced for the first time in 2016, but it has only started to spread recently following the greater availability of smartphones capable of managing the system and operators who include it among their services. Many have learned what it is recently, because for a few years now it has been a very popular solution for having internet on your phone when traveling abroad.
In general, a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) is used to tell the mobile phone where it is located which operator to connect to, with particular credentials that allow the device to access telephone services. Each SIM is associated with a telephone number and various other codes, which are used by operators to identify the individual user and trace it back to a specific customer. It was conceived with the aim of having an international standard recognized by all operators and which would allow individuals to easily change telephones, keeping their number at each change.
Since the first cell phones did not have large memory capacities, in their first evolutions the SIMs gave the possibility of extending it a minimum, for example giving the possibility of storing telephone numbers and other data directly on the SIM. If you changed your phone, you could therefore transfer your contacts more easily, in a period in which there was no possibility of saving your address book directly online as is the case today.
Evolution of the SIM card (GSM Association)
For several years now, however, smartphones have had enormous memory capacities and give the possibility of managing data more efficiently, including data linked to one’s telephone number. Already in 2010, some working groups of the GSM Association, the organization that coordinates the activities of mobile telephone operators, had begun to evaluate the possibility of abandoning the classic SIM cards to move on to a sort of virtual version of them, which did not include the use of an external card to insert into the devices. After a comparison with the main smartphone manufacturers, a first version of the eSIM was presented in 2016, which slowly began to spread mainly thanks to the interest of Samsung and Apple, two of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world.
Today, smartphones produced by these two companies and several other companies are compatible with eSIM technology, or adopt it exclusively. iPhones from version 14 onwards sold in the United States, for example, no longer have the door to insert a physical SIM and plan to be associated with the new virtual version, thanks to an agreement with the operators active in the country. iPhones sold outside the United States still have the physical SIM option, but can also be used with the new system.
What an eSIM does
Inside a smartphone with eSIM there is a microchip that performs the functions of the one usually present on a normal SIM, recognizable by its golden outer coating. The circuit is soldered directly onto the phone and cannot be removed, but otherwise performs the same functions as removable SIMs. Unlike the latter, however, it is not provided by a specific telephone operator and must therefore be associated with a telephone company when the telephone is set up.
There are various systems for activating an eSIM, usually through an application or an online procedure that is provided by the operators themselves. Once assigned, the eSIM becomes the reference of your telephone company with the various identification codes used to access its network and to identify the owner of the telephone number, in order to provide him with the services to which he is subscribed.
All the main telephone operators active in Italy such as TIM, Vodafone, WINDTRE, Fastweb and Iliad give the possibility of using an eSIM. If you have a traditional SIM, a few more steps may be necessary than using an application or scanning a QR Code: it is therefore important to find out from your operator.
What are the benefits
According to the GSM Association and several experts, eSIMs offer various advantages, starting with the greater convenience of not having to store, handle and transfer a physical card, which has now reached the size of a few millimeters. There is no longer the risk of losing the SIM, for example, or of damaging it while trying to remove it or insert it into another smartphone.
In the event that your smartphone is lost or stolen, the chances of being able to find it using the functions to locate your phone increase, given that the SIM that keeps it connected to the cellular network cannot be removed. In the event of theft, the SIM cannot even be destroyed and there is a greater possibility of blocking it, effectively making the phone unusable.
Smartphone manufacturers can also create phones with one less mechanical part, such as the door for inserting and storing the classic SIM, reducing the risks related to wear and tear or accidental breakage. The possibilities of building smartphones that are resistant to water and dust are also increasing, with less complexity than the models created so far. eSIMs can then be used in devices other than smartphones, such as smartwatches and trackers to avoid losing keys, bags and accessories.
The advantage that is often reported is linked to the possibility of having multiple telephone numbers on the same smartphone, given that eSIMs can maintain registration information with multiple operators at the same time. The capacities vary depending on the manufacturers, but the system is still more practical than that of smartphones which can manage a couple of traditional SIMs at the same time. In the case of a trip abroad, for example, it becomes possible to purchase a temporary eSIM from one of the telephone operators active in the destination country in order to access the local cellular network more easily, avoiding roaming costs.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of an eSIM is that if the smartphone breaks, transferring the number to another device is not as immediate as extracting a classic SIM card from the broken cell phone and inserting it into a working one. In the event of an emergency, it may therefore be more difficult to use your number quickly, without intervention from your operator. In other words, you cannot borrow a smartphone from someone to insert the SIM into, because this is not removable and if the original phone is broken it is impossible to carry out the transfer from its settings.
Telephone operators have always had strict control over their SIM cards, both for security reasons and to keep some of their customers’ activities under control, while they had less margin for intervention on the actual devices. With eSIMs, operators have greater control, simply because if you want to change your phone you need to go through apps or services provided by the telephone companies themselves to do so. However, the systems will be increasingly automated, also for practical reasons of managing millions of customers.
In the United States, where the transition to eSIM is proceeding quickly, especially due to Apple’s choice to sell new iPhones only with this system, no particular problems have been reported. In the case of activating a new iPhone, for example, there is an automatic procedure for number transfer and similar solutions are also starting to be used by some of the main Android smartphone manufacturers. However, there are cases in which things do not work as they should and you must contact your operator, providing the identification code of your device so that the number previously present on the traditional SIM is assigned to it.
The end of SIMs
The transition from traditional SIMs to eSIMs worldwide will take several years to complete, but it is widely believed among experts that it will be essentially inevitable given that all the largest manufacturers have chosen this solution together with the operators. It is expected that the systems for transferring one’s number from one eSIM to another will become simpler and will not require the use of a computer or other device, given that many people do not own a PC, especially in countries with poorly developed.
However, the disappearance of eSIMs will also lead to a small improvement from an environmental point of view, given that the plastic supports and packaging of classic SIMs will no longer have to be produced. Given the size they have reached, it might seem like a small thing, but it is estimated that there are around 8.6 billion subscriptions to mobile telephone services in the world.
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