Why you should care about e-sims
Vodafone will offer e-sims this year. Now, all we need is a genuine price war, writes David Court.
Vodafone has revealed plans to offer phone and wearable e-sims to customers by the middle of the year.
This is great news for earlyadopting Kiwis, as Spark is currently the only carrier to offer the technology, after winning the e-sim race in April last year.
Spark’s progress has been steady, but slow, since then, only offering e-sim support for the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy Watch for most of last year, with Apple Watch support landing only last month.
Customers who want to use the cellular features of their Apple or Samsung smartwatches have to pay Spark an extra $12.99 and $15.99 a month, respectively. This fee is unavoidable, regardless of what users pay for in their primary plans with Spark.
Vodafone entering the market should bring healthy competition, and choice, to consumers. I doubt I’m alone in feeling that Spark is squeezing customers a little by charging an extra $12.99+ a month to add e-sim support.
Customers who want to use their smartwatch’s cellular features are having to pay carriers twice for minutes, texts and data. This is an area where Vodafone entrance to the e-sim market could bring healthy capitalistic benefits to the consumer. Although, I’m not confident it will, as this seems to be the norm with e-sim markets around the world.
Speaking about its upcoming e-sim ambitions, Vodafone NZ’s technology director, Tony Baird, was keen to push an angle where his company has the run on Spark: 5G.
Baird said: ‘‘Now that 5G is live in New Zealand, as well as more than 20 countries around the world, manufacturers are starting to develop the next generation of devices and wearables to leverage the 5G benefits of speed, capacity and lower latency.
‘‘Already we have seen these trends in other markets, with 5G helping drive the transition of wearables and dual-sim devices from the early adopter to mainstream consumer. We expect to see significant advances in device capabilities as manufacturers embrace 5G over the next six-12 months.
‘‘While there is e-sim capability and features in the 4G environment, which will be supported when we begin rolling out e-sims this year, we strongly believe 5G will bring to life the true potential of wearables and dual-sim devices, so we are focusing on supporting the technology of the future.’’
What Baird is saying is true, 5G e-sims definitely will play an important role in improving new technologies. Specifically, wearables and other emerging devices that require fast data speeds and low latency.
But the all-singing, all-dancing 5G that’s perfect for these nextgeneration devices is not onedimensional 5G that Vodafone is currently offering in certain parts of New Zealand. So I’d take his comments with a pinch of salt. For now.
What is an e-sim?
The ‘‘e’’ in e-sim doesn’t mean ‘‘electronic’’ sim. It’s not like email (electronic mail). It stands for ‘‘embedded Subscriber Identity Module’’, and it’s a tiny chip that’s built into supported devices and acts as a rewritable ‘‘embedded’’ sim.
I’m labouring this point because its ‘‘embedded’’ nature is key to understanding the role of the e-sim.
The most obvious benefit of an e-sim is not having to fiddle with the pins or paperclips to insert/ remove the old plastic sims. Now, all you have to do is scan a QR code, or enter login details via an app.
But it’s more than that. Physical sims are one of the few pieces of technology to have survived from the first wave of (dumb) phones.
Phones, and other relatively new technologies such as wearables, are now aiming for a sim-free design. The rationale here is sound; those few millimetres of real estate the low-tech sim used to fill can now be occupied by something more useful. An extra millimetre of lithium-ion battery could result in hours’ more battery life, for example.
There’s more.
They also pave the way for more flexibility. The new iPhones come with the traditional physical sim slot and addition e-sim support.
This allows users to ‘‘dual-sim’’ the device. Using the traditional sim slot for their personal phone number and the e-sim slot for their work number, for example.
They also provide a great way to save money when travelling. For example, iPhone users with a New Zealand e-sim can buy local physical sims when overseas and enjoy local carrier rates (minutes, texts and data) and still be contactable via their New Zealand e-sim number.
Vodafone’s entrance to the market is a welcome one. Now, all we want, and need, is a genuine
price war.