[maximumoverload]

That's totally weird to me.

I don't want to say it from a position of superiority or anything, just different mobile culture, but in here, changing SIM cards is normal. It's what you do when you buy a new phone, because - as I said below - you get a SIM card separately, even when you buy it right with the operator with the contract.

But I guess it's a different culture

[malyk]

Different cultures for sure.

I've had 5 mobile phones...some candybar in the early 00's, a flip phone in the mid 00's, and iphone 3g, 4s, and now 6. I've never even /seen/ a sim card in person. It's a piece of tech that I shouldn't have to every even know exists. I just want my phone to work. I shouldn't have to play around with a microscopic piece of plastic and metal for that to happen.

[untog]

It's a piece of tech that I shouldn't have to every even know exists. I just want my phone to work.

I see it the opposite way. Every phone should have a part in it that is removable and replaceable and ensures that you can do whatever you want with your device. I was staggered when I found out that some US CDMA devices are literally unusable without the permission of the company you originally had service with.

[sanderjd]

Having a replaceable part is not the only way to ensure you can do whatever you want with your device! It is possible to ensure that with a universal SIM purely through software. That this isn't the current situation doesn't mean it isn't possible. I don't have to replace a tiny little piece of plastic in my computer to install Linux instead of Windows or to connect to wifi using Comcast instead of Qwest.

[maximumoverload]

Hm. Interesting.

If you want to buy a new phone and keep your number.... what do you do?

Well I guess you can just ask in the store to move it to the new one, that's true. It's just... strange.

[rblatz]

You don't ask, they hand you a phone and it just works.

[untog]

Unless you want to buy an unlocked phone, etc. etc.

[pessimizer]

Why would you want to do that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

[nknighthb]

Give the provider the phone's public key fingerprint.

You're letting yourself be constrained by the very brokenness people are saying should be fixed.

[maximumoverload]

Well in that case you have to have it tied with your name, so it will only work for contracts; and only about half of the people here are on contracts.

[Keats]

Works for pay as you go as well

[jacalata]

I'd be willing to bet that most people wherever you're from also can't change their own SIM and have the store employees do it (which is how it worked when I bought a SIM card in both London and Seattle in the last two months).

[userbinator]

Southeast Asia? That's one area where there appears to be little, if any, technophobia around SIM cards; and in some of them, on average each person has more than one mobile phone. Multi-SIM devices are also extremely common there.