Soon you may be able to say goodbye to those annoying pieces of plastic that your phone is practically useless if you lose. Apple, Samsung, and others are close to agreeing on a common architecture standard for an electronic SIM card (e-SIM), so there would be no physical SIM card for mobile phones or tablets. According to the Financial Times it would “fundamentally change how consumers sign up to mobile operators.”
Currently, with the physical SIM cards, you will sign up for a plan, receive a SIM card to put inside your phone, and usually have to wait up to 24 hours for the SIM to activate. With the e-SIM customers could sign up, switch, and transfer plans from the handset itself. The device makers like Samsung and Apple could pick and choose which providers and plans would be used on their mobile phones. With an integrated SIM customers are more likely to have lower data prices, due to the ability to easily switch plans driving competition.
However, Apple has already taken a step in the right direction, when they introduced the ‘Apple SIM’ last year. This SIM allows users to sign up to a range of data plans directly from their device without replacing the SIM card. This is available with the iPadAir 2 in both the US and the UK.
What are your thoughts about no longer having physical SIM cards? We think it will be easier without the annoyance of trying to open Apple’s tiny SIM card holder to enter the tiny SIM, which is so small it can easily be lost and never found again. Maybe SIM’s will be a thing of the past soon!