The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a consultation paper on ‘Embedded SIM (eSIM) for M2M (machine to machine) Communications”.
- It has sought comments from stakeholders on whether there is a need to prescribe subscription management secure routing (SMSR) swapping among the Indian telecom service providers (TSPs) and if yes, what should be the modalities and procedure for such swap.
- The Department of Telecommunications in November 2021 had sought TRAI’s recommendations for holistic deployment of eSIM in Indian telecom network.
What is an eSIM?
- As its name suggests, the embedded SIM card or eSIM is built into the phone’s board.
- It is basically a small chip physically integrated into the device, mostly by soldering to the device printed circuit board (PCB).
- It cannot be easily removed in the field. As a result, it requires remote provisioning, which is the ability to remotely select the SIM profile deployed on a SIM without physically changing the SIM card.
- The information on an eSIM is rewritable, meaning you can decide to change your operator with a simple phone call.
- They’re really easy to add to a data plan – connecting devices with eSIMs to a mobile account can be done in minutes.
- eSIM specifications (data format and security mechanisms in particular) are standardized to allow interoperability and enable remote SIM provisioning of any mobile device.
- The term eUICC is used to represent a SIM card that can be remotely provisioned.
- eSIM is backed by the GSMA, the association of mobile networks and that organisation has defined the standard for eSIM worldwide.
- eSIMs are found in a wide range of consumer products such as smartphones, wearables, and computers.
- eSIM now allows consumers to store multiple operator profiles on a device simultaneously, and switch between them remotely, though only one can be used at a time.
