What is an eSIM and How Does it Work?

hello there my name is Gary Sims and this is Gary expanse now the SIM card has been our faithful helper for at least the last 30 years I remember when I got my first feature phone with buttons 2G GSM as uh we call it and I had a SIM card kind of the size of a credit card and they kind of cut away at the plastic over the years and they've got smaller and smaller but we're still I've got SIM card in my in my current phone I mean they've been always part of the mobile experience however over the last few years a new technology has been coming in called esim that is going to eventually replace a SIM card in most markets I don't think in all markets and today I want to look at what is e-sim how it compares to a Sim some of the other technical details and so we can come away with an understanding of what the future holds so if you want to find out more please let me explain okay what is an easy him and how does it work these are replacing the traditional Sims that we see there we're not going to need them anymore as I said in in most markets so let's start with what a Sim is a SIM card stands for subscriber identity module is a small removable chip used in a mobile device to store and manage information related to the cellular network and to the user identity so we're all very familiar with them this is what they look like back in the day when I got my first 2G phone it was a huge credit card so you slotted right in the back of the phone and then over the years they've cut away at this plastic until you've basically got hardly opacity but if you notice the chip size has remained the same this chip and how it function is basically the same thing across all the different sizes now SIM cards play several essential roles in smartphones and mobile phones the SIM card contains a Unique International mobile subscriber identity the imsi that identifies the user to the mobile network this allows the network to associate the user's device with a specific account to manage billing and services and connectivity now also works for authentication the SIM card holds an authentication key that is used by the network to verify the user's identity this key ensures that only authorized devices can access the mobile network and prevent unauthorized access or fraud so obviously they try to make it hard for a phone that's not authorized to connect to the phone to the network consume minutes consume data and the same way to prevent you know cloning and all this kind of stuff of course there are problems to do with that now I also provides some stories SIM cards can store data such as contact information text messages network settings that makes it easy to transfer user data when switching devices because we would rather get a new device and you'd take out the SIM card and you put it in now before the days of you know Google photos and before Google contacts or the equipment on Android you'd hope that all your contacts were on there and we'll talk more about that in a minute also has carrier information about the mobile operator the card comes from the network operator itself whatever company you're using okay it's for their Network and they also enables a mobile phone to connect to the cellular network and able to make and receive calls because it provides the access information needed now an e-sim or an embedded Sim is a type of SIM card so similar to what you've just been talking about in mobile devices it's a small but now it's a small integrated chip that's directly embedded built into the device rather than removable card on a tray that you can pull in or out but basically the functions it provides are exactly the same so why would you want to use an e-sim rather than a normal Sim well they are significantly smaller okay you don't need this space for the tray anymore you don't need to have a little pin thing that you push the tray open with it's convenient they can be activated or deactivated uh over the network you can we'll talk more about this in a minute it's very you don't need to pull out a card put in a different card it can be done remotely so you don't need to have the physical card with you because the Sim profile can be updated over the network over Wi-Fi it can store multiple profiles you can have multiple cars you don't need dual SIM actually two physical slots in fact we'll look later you can actually store on some you know up to eight sometimes on some devices you don't need eight slots you know you can just need you don't need any at all and of course there is the improved durability I've had it myself I've swapped out sim cards and in the process for whatever reason I've damaged one I've had go and get a new SIM card and they had to activate it and it I've lost service for a couple of days while I went in oh it was quite a nightmare so pulling cards in and out can also cause damage now the way it works is this carriers typically present e-sim profiles as a QR code that you scan and download so for example on the S21 you go into settings you tap connections you go to Sim manager and then here there's this add Sim and if you click on that the camera basically opens up and you've got a chance to scan in the QR code that you got from your carrier the point is here is this makes it very easy it's just you go in scan a code and you're activated uh you've got the new SIM card and as I said multiple so if you have different uh things we'll talk more about dual SIM in a moment but you just scan it and you're there you don't need physical cards now I did just mention the imsi and I thought it was worth just going into the IMEI the international mobile equipment I did it and the imsi the international mobile subscriber identity just to make sure you're not getting confused and also talk about their role with e-sim so these are two numbers that uniquely identify things inside a mobile communication system however they serve different purposes so the IMEI is a 15 digit number that identifies a specific device such as a smartphone it's used by mobile network operators to track and monitor devices as well as block stolen or lost devices from accessing the network the IMEI is tied to the hardware and it Remains the Same even if you change your sim or switch to a different mobile operator if you unlock it whatever you do that is kind of the unique pretty similar to the MAC address the media Access Control address you get on network cards uh that make sure that is the uniquely identified they're unique across the whole world every single network card is unique every single Wi-Fi chip is unique and this is the same thing every mobile phone has this unique number whereas the aimsi it's not about your device but it's about you so it identifies a specific mobile network subscriber so it's a subscriber identity it's stored on the SIM card and used by the mobile network so that you get the bills basically you use the network and you have to pay for it so it identifies use generally it's not visible to the users as it's stored securely on the SIM card and used primarily for Network related uh purposes in summary the IMEI identifies the mobile device itself or the imsi a device the subscriber associated with a particular Network operator the IMEI is essential for tracking managing device on a network whereas the imsi is because for managing user accounts and services do ECM phones have an IMEI and an imsi yes esin phones have an international mobile equipment identity number IMEI just like phones with a traditional SIM card and the IMEI Remains the Same even if you change your e-sims change your ECM profiles which are different mobile network operator it Remains the Same and likewise yes esim phones have an international mobile subscriber identity number because that's about you and again it is a 15 digit unique number that I specifies you as a subscriber and in the case of an Eastern phone the imsi is stored inside the embedded Sim rather than physically on a SIM card but the same information is stored in both cases this one now is inside the embedded Sim rather than in the physical Sim that you can remove so what are the e-sim compatible phones that we can buy today this is not a comprehensive this or it does cover most of the major ones so from Samsung you've got the Galaxy s23 series you've got the Galaxy s22 so except for the s22 plus got the S21 series the s20 series The Note 20 the Galaxy Z flip 4 and fold 4 and the Galaxy flip three so basically if you've bought a Samsung Flagship device within the last few years it's probably likely that it is e-sim compatible and and basically the same with iPhone but maybe more so so you've got the iPhone 14 all the variants 13 12 11 XS XR the iPhone se3 from 2022 and the se2 from 2020 when it comes to Google basically anything after the pixel 4 is going to have e-sim compatibility when it comes from a Nokia looking at devices like the g65g the x35g and Oppo have got quite a few devices the N2 flip the X3 Pro the F X5 the X5 Pro the Reno 5A the a55s the Reno 6G Pro and of course before buying a device you should check specifically with your where you're buying the phone the phone supports it and with your operator to make sure that it does work so here's the question is dual SIM possible of course the old as I said in the old days you might have two little SIM card slots in the tray you could put two SIM cards in there and that's useful because you might want to use one business number and one a personal number you might have a better data plan certainly locally so separate voice and data planned and that also applies when you go abroad you might want to buy a quick pay as you go SIM card pop it in so that you can don't get charged for all the roaming and you can still use the local Services then of course if you need to you still get contacted on your other number so we do that today I do that personally with my current phone I've got two SIM cards in there and uh of course can you do it with esim yes you can you can store multiple e-sims but only two active at the same time as generally the rules some folks going to use one mobile data Network at a time so it depends exactly on the configuration on how many can be active for data you can use two different providers if your phone is unlocked and you can use dual C him by using a physical Sim and an e-sim or using two active Sims so it depends on what you can do and as I said some of them can store up to eight uh profiles so you can actually have eight uh SIM cards in there as long as they're active and whatever's going on you're doing the prepay or the paying as you go and then you can switch between them as you need to so that's a pretty useful feature that is Canon e-sim store SMS messages or contacts e Sims like traditional SIM cards have some storage capacitors that potentially could be used for storing SMS or contacts however and practice SMS messages and contacts are now stored on the phone's internal storage not on the SIM card itself and in the past the idea was as I mentioned a few minutes ago that if you move phones you would take out the SIM card and you would bring it to the other one and you'd have your phone numbers on it and it would have the SMS message we're not really in that age anymore so that doesn't really apply there's not really that advantage of storing that information in an e-sim okay that's it so the e-sim so I'd love to hear from you are you using a phone with an e-sim is activated does it work work or are you still using a traditional SIM card I really hope you enjoyed this video if you did please do give it a thumbs up don't forget you can follow me on social media all the things are here on the screen I also have a monthly newsletter go over to garyexplains.com type in email address no spam but you will get the newsletter and last but not least if you enjoy these kind of videos I invite you to stick around become part of the community by hitting that subscribe button okay that's it I'll see in the next one

Channel: Gary Explains

Views: 28,542

Keywords: Gary Explains, Tech, Explanation, Tutorial, eSIM, SIM, SIM card, IMSI, IMEI, embedded SIM, Subscriber Identity Module, Mini SIM, Micro SIM, Nano SIM, QR Code, Dual eSIM

Id: fW62mzey0f4

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 06 2023