With all smartphones preparing to move to eSIM only, it is time for AT&T Mobility, Dish, T-Mobile and Verizon to remove the roadblocks to adding eSIM for prepaid customers
by jovan1984
If you watched any of the Mobile World Congress last month, then you may have heard or seen a major announcement from Google about eSIM on the world’s largest mobile OS, Android.
With Apple getting rid of physical SIM cards for its IPhone 14 series, it was only a matter of time.
On Sunday, February 26, Android Police reported that Google has finally announced how it plans to up its eSIM game going forward.
Currently, it is very cumbersome to use eSIM on Android phones, with no carriers supporting eSIM on any Android device other than the Google Pixel series.
And even on the Pixel series, eSIM is supported only on postpaid/contract plans from the carriers, shutting out those who do not want to be locked into a 3-year deal with AT&T Mobility, T-Mobile or Verizon.
And only on December 31, 2022, did all carriers allow their prepaid brethren to use eSIM on IPhones. T-Mobile allowed its prepaid customers to use eSIM on December 1, 2018, earlier than everyone else and almost nine months before they extended that ability to their postpaid customers.
AT&T Mobility allowed its postpaid customers to use eSIM when the IPhone 11 series came out in September 2019, but its prepaid customers only were able to use eSIM on Christmas Eve in 2022.
And Verizon Wireless, which supported eSIM for its postpaid customers at the exact same time as AT&T, finally extended that to its prepaid customers on New Year’s Eve 2022, but only for new customers. Customers who are currently on Verizon Prepaid still cannot add an eSIM or convert their physical SIM to eSIM on any device, per information from Verizon’s web page.
What Verizon, and formerly AT&T, is doing to its prepaid customers is a travesty and these kinds of roadblocks need to go.
No way should it have taken AT&T three-plus years to give its Prepaid customers the same eSIM support that its postpaid customers had.
And no way should Verizon be permitted to continue to force its Prepaid customers who want to get the IPhone 14 series of phones to jump through a bunch of hoops just to get on the devices they want.
Apple, and especially Google, should be jumping down the carriers’ throats with both feet demanding that they give prepaid customers the same ease in going to eSIM on their devices as they have given to their postpaid customers.
eSIM has been around since September 22, 2018, when the IPhone XR (10R), XS (10S) and XS Max (10S Max) were released worldwide. The sorry excuses Verizon continues to make for putting up roadblocks for its prepaid customers ended when the IPhone 12 series was released in November 2020.
Time for Apple, Google and the customers to tell Hans Vestberg and Verizon Wireless: enough!
Aiken Area Progressive 