The SIM card will soon be relegated to history. It was meant to be another example of a then-much-needed, but now seen as rather awkward springboard on the road to technological nirvana, along with mobile pagers, MP3 players, and Palm Pilots. We will remember in moments of nostalgia like this little piece of plastic, accessible only through the clever use of a bent clip. The replacement: eSIM – a chip soldered directly into your smartphone, rightly deserves to be seen as much more than just an upgrade. Yes, this allows you to connect a device without a clip, but that's just the beginning of the story...
Smooth mobile experiences
In today's “new normal” of remote work, social distancing, and the need for everything to be available without ever leaving home, the shift from retail to online shopping has grown exponentially. However, the physical nature of the SIM card meant that digital retail with mobile devices was simply not possible. Fortunately, eSIM immediately breaks this barrier. ESIMs, because they are digitally downloaded for new customers within seconds of signing up with their preferred mobile service providers, provide a completely seamless experience anywhere in the world, without the customer ever having to visit a store. retailer to get a SIM card or wait for one to arrive in the mail. ESIMs also allow you to store and switch between multiple subscriptions on your phone, such as business, personal, and travel subscriptions. And since almost all eSIM compatible smartphones also support “Dual SIM”, you can use these subscriptions to connect to two mobile networks at the same time. This means you can download a local subscription while on vacation, saving you money on data, while making and receiving calls with your home subscription.
Activate smaller and lighter devices
While eSIM has undoubtedly made connecting traditional mobile devices much easier and faster, thanks to its very small form factor, it now also enables new categories of smaller and lighter devices, bringing mobile connectivity to hardware where before it wasn't possible, including smartwatches and activity trackers. . eSIM allows this new generation of portable technologies to work completely independently of any smartphone. This is a point that Apple recently demonstrated by introducing its “Family Settings” capability to its Apple Watch – this is all made possible by eSIM technology. eSIM even paves the way for connecting more traditional computing devices like laptops and tablets by default.
Remote connectivity
It's not just consumers who benefit - eSIMs are particularly beneficial for businesses because they provide flexibility and convenience to organizations managing hundreds or thousands of mobile devices for their staff. It enables IT teams to remotely deploy and add multiple connected devices and easily, quickly and easily exchange between staff members, without having to replace SIM cards. Even a total network provider change, if necessary, can be accomplished in hours, not weeks.
Large-scale connectivity
Cellular connectivity is critical to providing the next level of functionality demanded by today's industrial IoT applications. ESIM is already benefiting companies with large-scale machine-to-machine deployments; the power and automotive industries are just two examples: power companies can now deploy millions of utility meters (electricity, gas, water) around the world, all connected to mobile networks, confident that they can easily switch between service providers this connectivity if they need it, which was essentially not possible with physical SIM cards. In the automotive sector, eSIM allows connectivity provisioning at an advanced stage, where appropriate, local subscriptions are downloaded to vehicles at the last possible point in the production process, depending on the countries of destination of these vehicles. while also removing all the logistics of managing stacks of SIM cards for each country on the production line.
The era of eSIM
The eSIM era has already begun. ESIM will be a standard feature for most smartphones around the world by 2023, and Apple, Samsung, and Google will use their phones with this technology. Major IoT device manufacturers are adapting existing use cases and developing new ones with eSIM at the core. The speed of widespread eSIM adoption still depends on the ability of mobile network operators and industry stakeholders to educate themselves and their customers about the benefits, but rewards those who act faster. you will be stealing a huge advantage from your less agile counterparts. eSIM has the ability to free devices from existing connectivity limitations, allowing businesses to offer services well beyond the limitations of the physically restricted SIM card; all you need is some bold thinking...and maybe a plan for all those unused paper clips.