Can an eSIM Be Reused in a Smartphone?

 

As smartphone manufacturers increasingly utilize eSIMs to decrease space requirements for their phones and make room for additional battery power or features, eSIMs offer many advantages: reduced size requirements; no SIM tray required = cost savings!

The reusable eSIM QR code can be advertised using any media type and allows MNOs to offer various subscription packages and target specific customer segments – such as travelers.

Reprogrammable

eSIMs are embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Cards (UICCs) that can be remotely provisioned through remote SIM provisioning, making them an essential development in IoT and M2M applications that reduce costs while increasing flexibility in connectivity options. They support different commercial arrangements as well as radio access technologies like 4G, NB-IoT, and 5G networks.

Reprogrammable SIMs provide more flexible solutions for device users and OEMs alike. Device users can switch seamlessly between various connectivity services without needing to change physical SIM cards; additionally, the process takes place inside a secure area of the system-on-chip itself – freeing up space on motherboards for additional features while conserving energy consumption.

Reprogrammable eSIMs come in various sizes – from mini-SIMs to the nano-SIM – making fleet management and recalls easier than ever before. They allow for the remote provisioning of multiple profiles – including out-of-the-box connectivity profiles such as bootstrap, operational and fallback profiles for seamless fleet management and increased productivity.

Reusable

Reusing eSIM profiles is a cost- and administrative-cutting strategy to offset the expense and delay of buying new SIM cards due to accidental deletion from user devices, and can speed up provisioning times of new devices.

As one example of embodiments, subscription management services provided by wireless communication carriers may maintain a pool of available eSIM profiles in profile state data. When an EID notification identifies an eUICC with deletion status, the SM-DP+ may transition the profile 108 from available for reuse by all other eUICCs to available for use only by that particular eUICC 106.

This information can then be used by an eUICC of another user device associated with the same subscriber account and IMSI number. Additionally, this approach enables enterprises to provide employees with one reusable eSIM that can be used across multiple work devices, while creating revenue streams through business agreements with service partners (e.g. taxis, hotels and airports) – especially useful for travelers moving between different countries or regions.

Compatible with multiple carriers

An electronic SIM (eSIM) allows your mobile phone to access different networks by replacing physical SIM cards with more secure and reliable electronic ones. Verizon and AT&T both support eSIM; other carriers like Boost Mobile and Mint Mobile offer compatibility as well.

Traditional SIM cards present manufacturers and end users alike with an impractical limitation: only being installed on one device at any one time. But with eSIM’s carrier switching feature, switching carriers is now possible without replacing or buying another SIM.

Accidentally deleting an eSIM profile from a user device’s eUICC can be costly for wireless communication carriers; they must buy replacement profiles from vendors to replace lost ESIM profiles. However, the present disclosure provides techniques to repurpose deleted eSIM profiles on device eUICCs.

Secure

eSIMs represent an exciting development in mobile industry technology, eliminating the need for physical SIM cards and providing much greater security as they cannot be stolen or physically removed from devices. They’re also an effective way to avoid roaming charges while traveling abroad.

But they aren’t foolproof; hackers may still attempt to gain entry and change a user’s phone number without their knowledge, bypassing two-factor authentication (2FA), and gain full access to their accounts – known as SIM swap fraud.

To protect against this threat, eSIMs can be protected with a cryptographically secured system that manages communication between an eUICC and an eSIM. However, this system remains susceptible to an attack called spoofing in which cybercriminals use this form of communication between two systems to send false messages to both and thus change their memory values thus blocking updates to an eSIM.