Here’s an interesting bit of news out of Mobile World Congress: Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has been certified as the “world’s first commercially deployable iSIM (Integrated SIM)”. What the heck is an iSIM? Didn’t we just go through a SIM card transition with eSIM? We did, but iSIM is better than eSIM. We’ll explain, but the short answer is that iSIM is the next step in the continual march to reduce the size of SIM cards.
[…]eSIMs are still a chip taking up space on your motherboard, and that’s not ideal if you want to squeeze every square millimeter of space out of a phone. The next shrinking step is iSIM—an Integrated Subscriber Identity Module. Rather than a chip on the motherboard, iSIMs are integrated directly onto the SoC. SoC (system on a chip) integration is the technology that makes smartphones possible. Instead of a thousand little chips for things like the CPU, GPU, RAM, modem, and a bunch of other things, everything gets packed into one single do-everything piece of silicon. Individual chips require more space and power thanks to having to make motherboard traces to connect everything and having to deal with chip packages.
I’m still using an old-fashioned traditional SIM card, and while I’m sure going with eSIM and now iSIM is great from a simplification and power usage point of view, I feel like they’re both also about taking control away from the user and shifting it towards the carrier. It was a long fight to get rid of locked phones (mostly), but with eSIM/iSIM it seems locking devices down in more fine-grained ways only becomes easier.
I might be overreacting, but little red flags go up when I read about eSIM and now iSIM.
carriers have ways of restricting sim card swapping anyway. Look no further than CDMA provider turned GSM provider in the USA Verizon for an answer. They have a whitelisting program so if you sim swap into another phone that Verizon deems incompatible they will block its IMEI. I do however understand your point that integrating sim cards removes power from the user and I agree with you.
Technically, I don’t think it matters if its esim or traditional sim card. But implementation wise, it does. You’d need a quick and easy way to swap out the esim registration, which isn’t really there at all. you can’t just pick up an esim at a store and use it right now. EU should really mandate that to keep the freedom users currently have with physical sim cards. I know it will bloat the cost of the phones a bit but its worth it even as a dirty American who has only had that luxury when traveling abroad.
True, Esim prepaid services do exist though. Mostly online websites though.
Thom Holwerda,
In general I wouldn’t care whether SIM functionality runs on it’s own physical chip versus a virtual environment on the host. However it will be aggravating if this ends up locking down firmware even more than before. Running as a host VM seems optimal but I agree the big question is one of control. Is the owner in complete control? Or do they have to get provider’s permission to do something like switch SIMs or upgrade their device firmwares? It sounds like iSIM and eSIM are the same standard, just running on the host CPU instead, which doesn’t really bother me assuming it’s not vendor locked. I just don’t know if that’s the case.
Does anyone with an eSIM phone have experience a SIM swap? Are you free to install the SIM you want without “phoning home” or was there a process requiring an existing provider to give up control first?
re: eSIM.
In my single data point, it was the carrier provider app (like thing) that downloaded the eSIM do the device. Moving to a new device is also possible on the same network.
According to:
https://www.whistleout.com/CellPhones/Guides/esims#:~:text=If%20you're%20planning%20on,to%20use%20their%20eSIM%20also.
You need to “unlock” your device to remove an eSIM, though.
sukru,
Thanks. I found this too.
https://source.android.com/docs/core/connect/esim-overview
My main concern is that alt-os users aren’t somehow blocked from loading their own device firmware. I guess it’s too soon to tell for iSIM, but I’m reading that eSIM works under lineageos.
Carriers are half right.
Ideally every phone should work on every provider. In practice, many may have bugs, and don’t actually play nice with the rest of the network.
So, they enforce certification before a specific model, and even a specific firmware version is allowed on their network.
That being said, this is also source of a lot of frustration, and basically another roadblock in Android updates.
ChatGPT version:
That seems nonsense. Here in the EU, you can pick up any SIM lock-free phone, put a SIM card of any provider in it, and it just works.
jalnl,
EU does this at a “recommendation level”: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/xiaomi-huawei-lithuania-warning, but I see what you mean. Again in theory any phone should work on any network… as long as the LTE bands are compatible.
I think Verizon is using this as an excuse. Yes, their network is generally good, but they also want absolute control over it.
I suspect that it’s far more about companies like Verizon making sure extra pay-for features like wifi-tethering are properly locked down on those updates. On my current provider and plan I shouldn’t have that, but using an unlocked phone from a different region makes it no problem. (Plus Verizon would charge me $5 extra a month for the privilege of using a smart phone on their network, but that’s a different gripe.)
dark2,
Personally I think the laws should go further in protecting consumer rights to use their devices and bandwidth however they want without interference from the carriers. Alas, network neutrality was very short lived in the US, the republican party overturned it almost instantaneously once they took a majority.
Alfman,
Specifically re: unlimited mobile data.
I don’t think they can offer unlimited “tethering” and still keep the current service and/or price levels.
I have a $10/mo unlimited mobile data plan, if I were to use it for my home network…
(checking my usage stats…)
I have used 1.4TB of data last month at home, versus
~35GB mobile data (with some limited tethering).
They can only offer these unlimited mobile terms when it is used on a single device. Actually it is even device dependent ($30/mo for tablets or chromebooks).
So, basically they calculate how much you can use on the phone, and call it “unlimited”. I am sure, if I were to run a mobile torrent client, they would also be really unhappy, and possibly close the line.
Alfman,
Who’s talking about unlimited mobile data? Unlimited is a farce, even the unlimited plans have limits. IMHO the problem there isn’t with the limits, but the false advertising. Frankly carriers who advertise “unlimited” but fail to follow through should be sued for false advertising and consumers are getting duped by false claims. But that’s a different topic unto itself.
My gripe above is carriers charging different amounts depending on how you use those bytes even though all bandwidth uses the same spectrum and costs them the same. If I watch a stream on my phone, ATT fees and quotas are different than watching the same thing on a TV at the same bitrate (for example).
This is BS on the carrier’s part, but without net neutrality, carriers are allowed to upcharge depending on how you use the bandwidth you’re already paying for. This can and does add hefty price hikes to one’s monthly bill.
I’ve measured both ATT and Tmobile applying severe throttling after undisclosed quotas on their unlimited packages. I honestly don’t blame them for enforcing limited data because they don’t have unlimited data to share, but they should be sued over false claims and misrepresentation in advertising.
The fact of the matter is that it’s not the number of devices on a LAN that increases their carrier costs, but rather how much bandwidth is actually used. It should be clear to everyone here that someone streaming several hours of video from a phone consumes way more traffic than someone checking news and email on a laptop.
I have no problem with charging for how much bandwidth is actually used. However it’s obvious that tethering fees are simply a way to charge customers more for the exact same bytes.
Alfman,
They actually limit that hours long streaming, too.
As far as I know, YouTube defaults to 480p on T-Mobile, probably others as well.
But, yes “unlimited” might not be the right word choice. Something like “worry free” could fit better.
“Do you want always on mobile data on your phone? Try out worry free phone Internet package”
They don’t openly advertise, but there seems to be 4 different levels of data, with different pricing: wearables, phones, tablets/laptops, and home ($50)
They are all “unlimited”, but actually limit speeds after — as you mentioned — hidden thresholds.
Anyway, I don’t think they will fix these on their own, without external pressure from customers and/or governments.
sukru,
Well, anything that doesn’t imply unlimited would be better. My dad doesn’t have broadband, he’s only got cellular data. When he goes past the hidden quotas streaming from the phone, he buys more bandwidth (on his unlimited plan) in $10 increments to unthrottle his connection. I’ve searched ATT’s terms and conditions, and they do everything they can to obscure what the quotas are and even the fact that there are quotas at all using cryptic lawyer speak. This isn’t reasonable, they should be fined by US regulators if they were doing their jobs.
And just to re-iterate, I’m not asking for something for free, but all the limits need to be disclosed up front with no surprise bottlenecks or fees. All quotas and additional bandwidth fees need to be published up front so that consumers can be informed when comparing what they’ll actually get.
Alfman,
Just for sake of discussion, we could argue that there is probably a behavioral component in here.
They might be planning the capacity around the average usage, while setting quota thresholds wrt. 95’th percentile (or some other metric). That would mean most of the time the network would function reliably, and almost none of the users will never see quota related issues.
However if quota is much larger than average, this will lead to people thinking: “I paid for it, I should use it. They said, I can use up to 100GB, I have only used 20GB, let’s download some movies!”
That might be a valid reason to obscure the limits.
However I don’t think there is a valid reason to add hidden fees. What TMobile does is reasonable here, where they really give you unlimited, but will throttle to snail level (2G) speeds when you use too much data. (No hidden surprise fees).
sukru,
I believe the number impacted by throttling is far greater than 95% you are using in this example. As you indicated before, users are being throttled down to low def video. Personally I don’t require mobile bandwidth often but sometimes I notice the bandwidth is even less that what’s needed for low def streaming. I wish I’d taken a screen shot, but on a recent family vacation to florida I was getting speed test results of about 1.5mbps. I needed to install a 100MB theme park app and it took a very long time.
The problem isn’t limited to niche users, it’s normal users who’ve been sold on streaming services and video calls who are using up most of the network capacity these days. 5G promised to dramatically fix this, but carriers largely failed to deliver the mm-wave networks that were required to achieve the promised bandwidths. I have yet to see one myself. Instead it’s just bandwidth that got decommissioned from 2/3/4G.
I disagree. I understand why marketing departments want to keep their customers in the dark, but I feel it’s ethically problematic for companies not to disclose what you are paying for. I think there are better ways to distribute bandwidth in a fair & honest & ethical way that reflect the physical realities without relying on hidden quotas.
Your package might include a certain number of “bandwidth credits” and the network bandwidth available at any given time is divided among endpoint credits. You’re always entitled to your fair share of bandwidth, and it doesn’t matter how you want to use those bytes. Furthermore bulk users could take advantage of much higher off-hour bandwidth.
When my parents were on tmobile and exceeded their hidden quotas the bandwidth was throttled down to dialup speeds. They watched a lot of netflix, so it’s a given that they would run over the quotas. But it also meant they couldn’t do any more video calls until the next billing cycle, but it wasn’t even reliable enough to do basic services like banking. The kicker, my dad had so much trouble accessing Tmobile’s own website on their unlimited plan in order to buy more bandwidth that he’d have to call them up to do it for him. Calling it unlimited is factually wrong and frankly Tmobile (and others) deserve to be fined for calling their service “unlimited”, it’s deceptive as hell.
Sorry if I’m being too argumentative, haha.
I just don’t feel it’s reasonable to call bandwidth unlimited when it stops being broadband and becomes very unfit for the purposes for which it was sold. To me that’s bate and switch. I don’t object to tmobile offering packages with these limits, the main problem is the lack of transparency about their limits. The market should decide the price and features, but this lack of transparency makes it impossible to compare packages. Consumers should be entitled to know how the service will be limited in order to objectively shop around.
While I can understand that things progress, I don’t see that this move will benefit the end users at all. The convenience of being able to pop out the SIM from your old phone and put it into a new one trumps any perceived improvements for the manufacturers.