e-SIM More Than Just a Size Reduction

e-SIM is another Tech-resource included  in 5G toolkit, which will open tremendous opportunities, not only for Telcos, but for the other verticals as well. e-SIM is more than just a next phase of SIM size reduction. It is opening the whole new dimension for Telcos, which was never existed before. Think about it this way, in today's scenario, we use MNP, in case we need to change the Operator/Carrier, which requires significant amount of time and a physical intervention of human touch (either for store pick-up or for home-delivery).

Even in case of an Online Order placement, Telcos are doing online verification of customer Identity-documents (e-KYC), but still a Physical SIM has to be picked from a store or somebody has to deliver it to the customer's door step, for complete Order Fulfillment. Apart from this, a physical warehouse is needed and a Physical-Inventory Management is required to manage the life-cycle of Physical SIMs. Usually in today's scenario, Operator's BSS/OSS systems does not have a full-proof Physical-Inventory-Management in place and they rely on the Warehouse integration to manage the Logical-Inventories only.

In fact it becomes almost impossible to  MNP the Enterprise customers, where Hundreds or Thousands of SIMs are involved. The whole process of MNP for Enterprise customers usually takes a month to complete and as a matter of fact, many rollbacks are done in between and a massive SIM-Swap is needed.

What if there is no Human-Touch is involved in the process of MNP? What if you can switch to a local-Operator in a foreign country without any implication of Roaming-Agreement between your Home and Local-Country Operator? What if you are able to switch the Operator instantly, irrespective of Enterprise customers or mass-market (Retail). This is where the concept of e-SIM comes in, and it is not limited to Telco, e-SIM is a must Tech-Tool for the Vertical industries.


Telco can not be fully Digital, without the concept of no Human-Touch Order-Fulfillment and e-SIM can provide that. User can simply put the request for MNP or new connection online, just the same way they are doing today and post online verification, the new e-SIM will be installed via OTA along with the instant activation.
This is more useful in case of a short International trip, where user can simply request for a new local connection, at the time of landing, providing his/her Passport details and an instant activation of local e-SIM, while the Home-SIM can be brought down to Disabled mode.

"5G will leverage this much needed technology shift to fulfill on-demand, automated subscriber activation!"

Think about the scenario, where a City is leveraging mMTC (massive Machine Type Communication) for Automotive Cars, Traffic and Street Lights. Now City-Administrative-Authority wants to shift to a new service-provider. It is no news that in a typical mMTC scenario there are typically 1Mn connected devices per Squire-Km. Considering the case of this City, we are looking at a very high number (~10Bn) of connected devices, which need a SIM swap. In a Physical Identity Module scenario, this is next to impossible, because all the Physical Identity Modules (RF-IDs, Tags, SIMs etc.) need to be changed. On the contrary, if Telcos are using e-SIMs, they can simply generate the scheduled OTA-update to modify the existing Identity-Module or install/activate the new one and that too in a matter of hours if not minutes.