Looks like Telefonica are planning to phase out the plug in SIM

[Anonymous]

This seems a bit of a backward step in my opinion for phones at least.

What are your thoughts?

[MI5]

Prevents you from easily switching between phones I guess so they probably perceive it as a benefit to O2....

[ewanrw]

Handset manufacturers, and particulalry Apple have been pushing for eSIM support for years, so makes sense to me.

Also, if you follow the Apple route, you can have multiple providers linked to your eSIM, so even easier to flick between different networks.

ewan

[Anonymous]

I somehow don't think it's going to work in the customer's favour and if a SIM is faulty that means a repair so the customer is inconvenienced.

Apple seem to constantly want to bite the hand that feeds (making repair difficult or impossible) and the silly Nano SIM size which is what we have now.

[viridis]

Wouldn't surprise me,
They'll probably delay 5G rollout until iPhones have it too.

[welshsteve76]

A excuse to charge more if you ask me.  They will charge more stating excuses such as the specialist support required when it doesn't work. If a SIM stops working currently they just send you a new one or you get a new one from a store and then port your number over.

Take digital music for example.  It is now more expensive to buy a digital album than physical one, even though digital music has next to nothing as far as overheads whereas with a physical album it needs to be produced, packaged and shipped etc.

[viridis]

Exactly that, and digital has less quality than physical formats. But hey, digital age right...

[sheepdog]

Completely unconvinced by the video that its of any benefit to a phone user especially those who swap phones at will. Its only benefit is to the network provider in saving costs at the expense of user choice with the added bonus of being able to cut off non-payers rather quickly. 

Though yes, it has a few advantages: 

1. Locked payg phones: switch on and its done. If you have a set of them for example a family, it would not be too hard to have a combine them in a single account to designate call plans/costs and money etc which taken logically, actually removes the need for CS. 
2. Easier for corporates to provision company devices. 
3. IOT devices where space is at a premium and easier to activate/deactive at a distance

I really don't get the argument that manufacturers need the space in a phone by not having a sim slot. In the case of Apple, it hasn't stopped them dropping the headphone socket completely and producing larger phones. Yet we have this bizarre situation of having phones with pretty poor battery life, large screens and now some having more cameras than needed! Its not as if they are using screws either as its heading towards the use of glue to save even more space/weight. 

[Anonymous]

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@welshsteve76 wrote:

A excuse to charge more if you ask me.  They will charge more stating excuses such as the specialist support required when it doesn't work. If a SIM stops working currently they just send you a new one or you get a new one from a store and then port your number over.

Take digital music for example.  It is now more expensive to buy a digital album than physical one, even though digital music has next to nothing as far as overheads whereas with a physical album it needs to be produced, packaged and shipped etc.

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@welshsteve76

Not quite true Steve as the files are stored somewhere to make them available for sale and then there's the front end to host which even if it sits on AWS or Azure the retailer gets charged for.

Apple run a lot of their own servers too.

[Cleoriff]

Without going into any great detail it appears to be a retrograde step to me. It seems phones will be more costly and the inconvenience to customers will be an annoying factor.

Though of course they won't be interest in any of that!