[kalleboo]

The actual reason it's still a thing is because changing how thousands of network operators work in over 200 countries is quite difficult to coordinate. Even Apple tried to push a soft-SIM and couldn't get it going.

But I'm glad for it, because the foresight of the designers of GSM to put your private key in a smartcard has absolutely improved consumer choice worldwide. I can buy an unlocked phone, travel to any country, buy a SIM card at the airport and pop it in my phone and the GSM(/UMTS/LTE) standards say it must work.

A software-based system will quickly devolve into a "oh we haven't approved this phone on our network, sorry we won't activate it" and other anti-consumer activities you saw on the ESN-registration-based US CDMA networks.

Hopefully when the GSMA adds eSIM to the standard, they add protections for consumer choice, but in the current corporate climate I fear they won't.

[vinay427]

Samsung succeeded with its eSIM implementation on the Gear S2 smartwatch, which works on a limited number of mobile operators.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/18/11044624/esim-wearable-sma...

[RandyRanderson]

The phone can theoretically work but the network operator can still ban your phone, even if it has a valid SIM, by manufacturer, software version, baseband version or a host of other reasons.

[wyldfire]

IMO the fact that the device subsidy is so popular with both consumers and network operators in the US means that all of this ostensibly anti-consumer stuff will be with us for a while. The (hard) SIM cards don't even offer the desired portability if you have to go beg for the device to be unlocked.

[wolfgke]

> The (hard) SIM cards don't even offer the desired portability if you have to go beg for the device to be unlocked.

It's not the SIM card that is not portable, but the phone that you bought.