Everything You Should Know About eSIM

We have been reading a lot about eSIM lately but, do we really know what is it and why it was built for?

As the name suggests, eSIM is an electronic SIM card. It’s said that will replace the current SIM card. The SIM used today is a physical and plastic card with a virtual embedded unremovable equivalent. All smartphones on the market can use it. On the contrary, the eSIM allows customers to connect devices or change between networks in an easy way. Plus, users won’t need to get or change the eSIM when they make a change.

With expectations of 50B IoT devices connected, on-demand remote provisioning and mobile connectivity are going to be key factors in this business. Find out more about the future of telecoms in Intraway’s Vision for 2020 and beyond.

The GSMA began the standard definition in 2013. Early in 2016, they published the initial specifications for guaranteeing interoperability between carriers, manufacturers, and platforms.

Being as small as 4 mm length and 4 mm width it will still have the same functionality as a removable SIM. The difference is the way it displays it, as the chip is permanently welded into the device. It has eight electric pins like the eight contact points of a current SIM.

Advantages of eSIM

The main benefits of adopting eSIM, for customers and providers are:

• Easy to Change: Changing Mobile Network Operator (MNO) is much easier. There will be no need to physically remove the chip card and replace it with a new one. The activation can be remote by using Over-The-Air interface without any restriction.
• Size: As we can appreciate in the image above, the size will reduce significantly. Its size allows designers to use the remaining SIM slot space for other technologies or bigger batteries.
• Security: As eSIM is permanently installed to the main board of the device; it’s harder to steal it.
• Robustness: It tolerates vibrations of machines and cars, extreme temperatures, dust, and humidity.
• Cost Efficiency: It’s cheaper compared to regular SIMs. The production and distribution are more efficient as the provisioning and personalization take the last place in the flow.

eSIM and IoT

Within the next few years, IoT devices will be the largest connected category, overtaking mobile phones. For IoT device manufacturers, eSIMs offer the ability to build a vast number of connected devices. Therefore, it makes connectivity and owning new market segments more accessible.

The benefits of the interaction between eSIM and IoT enable new categories of connected devices. Some examples of this are:

• Wearables: The new Apple Watch 3 is the first device that uses eSIM. So far it can only be used by Verizon.
• Cars: With the inclusion of an eSIM, we will be able to connect our cars to cell phones quickly.
• Laptops: The inclusion of eSIM will provide brands and resellers the opportunity to up-sell/cross-sell through the use of flexible data bundles.
• MNOs: Will have the opportunity to assume a leadership position in the IoT market. They will also have the chance to offer convergent deals like multiple devices under the same contract.

The Future

We can predict an enormous variety of ideas about the future and this technology. It’s a fact that eSIM will give us an improved and more secure customer experience as well as better-designed devices and new business opportunities for operators. Overall, eSIM will enable to cross-device connectivity like we’ve never experienced before.

With expectations of 50B IoT devices connected, on-demand remote provisioning and mobile connectivity are going to be key factors in this business. Find out more about the future of telecoms in Intraway’s Vision for 2020 and beyond.