Mobile connectivity is borrowing from the playbook of our “click to buy” culture and as a result, instant access network services at the touch of a button is becoming a reality.
Think of how you activate LTE services today on your shiny new smartphone—you likely insert a SIM card provided by your carrier of choice. But what if you didn’t need a carrier SIM card? What if you could simply toggle through your phone’s settings menu to choose a carrier that provided the strongest signal, for example, and a second later, your phone switched to the better, stronger network? That is the promise of eSIM, and if you have an iPhone XR, XS and 11, that functionality is already a reality in your phone!
The first question most buyers ask themselves is “why do I need eSIM in the first place?” Outside of the convenience of instant service without waiting on line at your carrier’s local retail store (“now serving number 24”) or waiting anxiously for that overnight envelope to arrive with that SIM card you ordered 24 hours earlier, the real answer is a serious point of concern for mobile operators, all competing for your business: it’s called CHOICE.
Imagine if you could activate your phone with one carrier on Monday, but after realizing that speeds are slow in your area because of congestion, you are able to change to an alternate mobile provider in seconds. This would not be kind to your carrier’s bottom line, to say the least. Imagine what would happen to their stock price if they were forced to tell their investors “we had 35 million subscribers at the beginning of this week but are now down to 15 million. We hope to get them back by next Tuesday.”
So, what have the mobile operators done to protect themselves from this happening? Well, they’ve created roadblocks in an otherwise seamless and automated process. Want to keep your number as you move from one provider to another? You’ll need to go through the same porting process that’s in place today—including validating that you don’t owe any early termination fee on your subsidized line or a balance on your carrier financed devices. They use process and introduce red-tape to slow the adoption of technology and defend against carrier churn.
The Good News
Technology typically wins in the end, and consumers will benefit from better service, as carriers compete to not only win your business but keep your business.
The Great News
MetTel has already adopted eSIM technology and is offering it for its Single SIM product. That means you get all the amazing benefits of always-on connectivity on the best signal in your area, in a virtualized eSIM. You can now provision traditional mobile services from MetTel on all four major networks, and in addition, provision a secondary mobile data connection on the same iPhone XR, XS or 11, that roams on all networks around the world and selects the best signal automatically.
That means you can get that email or app update even in areas where the primary provider may have a low signal in the U.S. and secure better roaming rates when you’re traveling around the world. It also means that once the network providers finally agree to allow seamless porting for your primary phone number, MetTel will be ready to enable that function for you. The function of CHOICE, that is.