Last week my roommate spent hours to switch her mobile plan from the pre-paid one to the subscription. She needed to call her mobile operator and asked for the new contract. After that, she had been waiting for the delivery of the new sim card for three hours because the delivery guy came late. Finally, she inserted her new sim card into her phone – and the only thing she saw was NO SERVICE sign.
The good news here is that in the near future probably nobody will face these problems anymore. The World is going to embrace the new generation of sim cards – eSim. GSMA – the association that represents network operators worldwide, first mentioned this standard in the beginning of 2016 as the connection technology for the smart watches, health bands, tablets, highly-portable health systems and other devices. The 12th of September, 2017 Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 3 will be using eSim. So, now we can expect the global spread of this standard, as everything Apple launches becomes trendy worldwide.
ESim is an embedded chip, which can not be removed from the device. The information on the chip is compliant with all mobile operators, who support the technology. The user can change his or her mobile plan or operator, simply downloading the new sim-profile to the device, the way now we choose wi-fi networks (well, a bit more complicated, but you got the idea). This is the huge drop in switching costs for the customers.
However, for the mobile providers, the future is not so bright. How will they retain their customers from going to another provider, if users can do it in a couple of minutes from home? Will eSim lead to an emergence of new providers, specializing only on this standard? How will it affect the market share of existing companies? So far, not every mobile carrier expressed the willingness of supporting eSim technology. Thus, the sales of Apple Watch 3 will start only in 9 countries, where mobile providers already implemented eSim. For the rests, support of eSim is an open question.
Sources:
GSMA (2016), The SIM for the next Generation of Connected Consumer Devices, Available from: https://www.gsma.com/rsp/
Pocket-lint (2017), What is an eSIM and how will it change connected devices for the better?, Available from: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/134640-what-is-an-esim-and-how-will-it-change-connected-devices-for-the-better
