All About SIM Cards - Swapping, Adapting & Re-Sizing, Dual, eSIM and More!

this little piece of plastic plays a very critical role in your mobile internet setup so today we're going to be talking all about sim cards hi there i'm sheree with the mobile internet resource center and this little piece of plastic is otherwise known as a sim card sim stands for subscriber identity module and basically the information that is contained on this little card is everything with your cellular data plan it contains the phone number that is on your device that people can use to call you and send text messages to it has all the information about the data plan and the terms and service of your phone plan with your carrier it is what basically identifies your device a smart phone or potentially a hotspot or a router to the carrier and what features you get with the plan that you have subscribed to now there's a lot to know about these little cards and how critical they are to our setups so we're going to be going in depth on this we're going to be talking about how to move these between devices how to size them and all the different formats that they come in but basically every cellular device on the market today needs a sim card to be able to function to be able to place phone calls to be able to get online to the internet now sim cards can rather be inserted into devices some of them are electronically embedded inside the devices and some devices like modern smartphones and some routers can actually allow you to have more than one sim card inserted at a time so you have access to multiple data plans so we're going to be diving in and chris is up next to tell you more what i'm holding up here is known as a nano sim nano because well sims actually come in multiple sizes and they've changed over time so the nano sim is probably the most common and now but back when sim cards first came out they were actually the size of a credit card so this was considered the full size sim then well you've probably never seen one of these these haven't been used in phones in ages full size sim cards like this what's more common is the mini sim this size and then came the micro sim this size see pretty similar and then the nano even tinier because well as phones advanced they wanted more space for things like batteries and other electronics and they didn't want to waste all that space for sim cards but one of the really interesting things and important things is the sims are actually all electrically identical the part that matters has always been the size of the nano sim the rest of it around it was just plastic you know to basically make it easier to insert and remove and that opens the door for cutting sims down to size if you want to try and take a sim card that is one size and chop it down to be a smaller size that's actually possible and you're not destroying the sim it will still work because all the important electronics are in the nano sim size piece right here so there are tools that are sim cutters like this that can cut down a mini or a micro sim and turn it into a nano sim if you're trying to go in the reverse direction then you've got sim card adapters that will take a nano sim or micro sim and let you put it into a mini sim or a micro sim slot so these names get kind of confusing but you can go up and down in size as needed it's easier to go up with adapters than to chop things but it is possible to go in both directions to adapt sims to be to be able to move them between devices now all these different devices have different places where the sim cards can go so let's show you some of the different ways that sim cards can be installed and where they are fit into devices now most phones have a sim slot externally it's usually a little dot someplace where you can put a sim eject tool or a paper clip or a safe little pin and press and eject and you have access to lose your sim card and have it drop out of the tray um and that's how sim cards work in phones hot spots and stuff often have the sim cards hidden underneath the battery and the ways that they go in and out often vary so here's a verizon 8800 and the sim card is in a little tray under the battery here and this is a nano sim you have to look for the little tab to i put it in the right orientation contact side down and you just slide it in until there until it fits into place and then to get it out you just slide it out and reverse and sometimes it's helpful to either use a sim eject tool or something just to gently help slide something out if your fingernails aren't able to do the job other types of hot spots have different slots on the bottom usually still hidden under the battery here is a netgear nighthawk the slot here is again down here and you could slide in and out this one takes um micro sim so if you have a nano sim like we have here you need to use an adapter to put it into this slot and again always line up the devices there the sim card where the little notch is cut out of the corner to make sure you're putting it in the right way and then just line it up and never force it because you don't want to bend the tip the pins that are making the contact on the sim and never try to put a sim in the wrong size slot so if you were to slide in a nano sim here where it's expecting a micro sim you can potentially get it stuck or bend the pins this really matters for some of the other ones where it can get lost deep inside a device and you might have to have a technician do surgery to extract it so always have the right adapters set up and use them other types of devices like here's a netgear orbee router make it really easy to get to the sim slot it's right externally it's spring loaded you just line up the little tab push it in and it kind of clicks in place and to eject it you push it again and the spring pops it out super easy when it's uh exposed and external like that now we get to some routers that have sim cards in all sorts of different places this pep wave max br1 has actually two sim slots but only a single modem so the inside the software interface you can pick which sim is active but only one is active at a time it's really handy for quickly switching between say att and verizon for example now most routers take the full size of the mini sim the bigger size so you would use an adapter put the sim into the adapter because there's a micro sim going into a mini sim adapter and orient it into the slot and push it in and you'll see this was kind of tough to slide in place because the this particular adapter kind of makes things thick that's why i keep some needle-nose pliers on hand because even though it's spring-loaded sometimes it's gets a little stuck and you've got to extract them and that be a case for using a different adapter that doesn't add any extra width so um that adapter got a little extra but back plastic to it not so good here an adapter like this one will probably slide in and out easier another tip for things like this don't put an adapter in to test it without a sim card being in the adapter or again that could get stuck and bend the pins got another router here this is a peplink um balance 20x on the back it's got the same sort of uh dual sim slot for the expansion modem here and again but this is a dual modem device so it's got a whole other modem with other sim slots and those are hidden down on the bottom and these are actually kind of a really tricky sim slot to put things in and out of it's got a little metal tab that slides and then you've got to lift it up and balance that there and then take again a mini sim of the bigger size slide it into this little tray push the tray down and then slide the little metal tab over and it locks it into place so again just take your time figure it out every device might have a different way that the sim cards go in place and some devices actually have to take them apart because the sim card is hidden away and not accessible outside unless you unscrew them and stuff so things like the wi-fi ranger converge router on the roof you have to unscrew it to get at the hidden sim slot inside but every cellular device has a sim slot except if they're using esim now esim is a technology called embedded sim that's basically replacing little plastic with software and some devices like the new iphones can use esim and a regular sim to have two sims active the esim you install either via an app or scanning a qr code with your phone and other devices that support esim will have similar ways of installing this virtual soft sim works the same way internally it's actually running on a chip just like this but it is permanently embedded and you could swap between multiple e-sims so you can actually have several e-sims installed for different carriers and just pick between them kind of handy it's the kind of the way things are going in the future because then device manufacturers don't have to put slots and they don't have to waste all that space and it's easier to waterproof things if you don't have external jacks so now the big question is why would you even want to move the sim card to a different device and there's a lot of reasons why the first is maybe you want to upgrade your device or switch to a different phone maybe one you purchase independently from a friend or online from a third party this allows you just to move the sim card from one phone to another without having to involve your carrier it's really that simple just move the sim card over or perhaps maybe normally in your rv or boat you run off of a mobile router that has to be plugged in it doesn't have battery power but maybe you're going off on a hike or you're leaving for the day and you want to be able to take your data plan with you and you want to move it to a mobile hotspot device that can run off of battery and is far more portable that allows you to move your data plan from the router to the hotspot device you might also have going out for a whitewater rafting adventure and you want to take a cheaper or more rugged phone with you instead of your expensive flagship phone there's lots of reasons why you might want to move your plan around but you do need to check in with your carrier and your plan to make sure that you are authorized to move that sim card to a different device some carriers won't let you move your sim card they might be only designated for certain type of devices like smartphone plans typically can't be used in a data only device unless the carrier specifically authorizes that use also they might have a specific type of device that that plan is designed for like a connected car plan can only work on connected car devices so if you move the sim card the plan might not work or be legit or within terms of service so be sure to check in with your carrier on that some of them might even lock it to the specific imei number that's the serial number of the device and you actually have to contact the carrier if you want to move that sim card to a different device so they can update your account so be sure to check in on the terms and conditions of your plan and with your carrier because sim swapping sometimes you just can't do it between devices but if you have a plan that you can it really is as simple as just moving the sim card from one device to another and adapting if you need to so how do you get these little plastic things a lot of the carriers when you subscribe to a new plan they're either going to send you one or if they're going to activate it right in the store when you sign up for the plan some devices if you buy a mobile hotspot or smartphone it's going to come with a sim card a blank one already installed and all you have to do is activate the plan with the carrier but keep in mind these sim cards are carrier specific so a verizon card can only work with a verizon plan if you're going with a prepaid or a mvno or reseller they may have specific cards like cricut you need to get a cricut sim card to work with a cricut device and some carriers will allow you to reuse a sim card so if you have like a leftover verizon card from an older plan or device you can just reactivate it sometimes other carriers like 18t they want you to have a new sim card for each plan that you activate so the sim card is usually provided with your plan but sometimes that might not be practical so you can go to stores that sell prepaid plans like best buy or target and buy a blank sim card you're going to pay maybe 10 or you can go to the carrier's website and just have them ship you a blank sim card you can keep that on hand so that you can activate a plan when you need it on your device so there's always to provide and get those sim cards do you know the size that you need some carriers are getting really smart and they actually have a punch out card that has all three sizes available on one card with the sim card so you just pick the size for your device that makes it super handy so you're not having to pre-guess but keep those things in mind when you're selecting your sim cards when you're moving them between devices and hopefully this helps save you some frustration down the road these videos are brought to you by our premium members our mobile internet aficionados they make it possible for us to track this news and create these videos if you like this video please give it a thumbs up leave a comment subscribe to our channel or better yet consider becoming a member yourself

Channel: Mobile Internet Resource Center

Views: 406,064

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Id: jLs09H7Nntw

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 08 2020