Hey guys, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this, but I’m a tech freak. Specifically when it comes to phones, I’m the guy you call when your device has a software problem. So as much as I can, I try to always have the fanciest settings and apps, because well, I need to fit into the role, right?
Well tonight, I messed around a bit in my sim carrier’s app and took a look at something I’ve been seeing for a while but have completely been ignoring- An eSim.
Two months ago when I was on TikTok, I saw one creator talking about how eSims granted certain phones the dual sim ability. But because of my short attention span, I didn’t pay attention or see the video to the end, so I didn’t really get what he was on about. But now I do.
so an eSim basically from my understanding so far basically is an imprint of your sim card on your mobile number on your device. This makes the phone capable of operating without the sim card, while still being fully functional in regards to what it could do with a sim card in it. So even without the sim in the phone, you get to make phone calls, send text messages, browse and everything else! All without a sim card inserted of course.
Now at first thought, this sounds like how a mobile hotspot works. But the difference here is that with a mobile hotspot you can’t receive phone calls, or send text message from a sim that is not on your phone.
Dual sim ability
The coolest part of an eSim in my opinion is the fact that even for phones with one sim slot, after your mobile number is imprinted on your phone, you can take out the number imprinted and put in a totally different sim card so that your phone now operates on two numbers.
In my case, even though my phone has one sim slot, I removed my MTN number(which my eSim is on) and fixed my vodafone into my phone. I actually broke my MTN sim card in excitement and whiles I was doing it, I was hoping the entire time that I didn’t just hallucinate the idea of an eSim and broke my sim as a result. That would ne a helluva story. Lol.
So yeah, now I’m operating two sim cards on an iPhone 11 Pro Max which only supports one sim slot. How cool is that?!
The dual sim ability in turn unlocked some new settings on my phone. Now, I get the chance to select which sim to use as primary sim(main sim) or secondary sim when I want to browse, make a phone call or send messages. So something like the Sim 1 or 2 pop up androids have when you try to make a phone call.
Another feature it unlocked reminds me of something my galaxy s6 used to have. On my galaxy s6, the phone automatically switched to a data connection if my wifi was slow. The new feature similar to this that comes with the activation of my eSim on my iPhone is similar to this. According to the description of the feature, if you turn on Allow Mobile Data Switching, you can use data from both sims depending on coverage and availability.
Now…I get that many people already know about eSims and have been using them for years, maybe decades. But this is something new to me and I’m sure it is to a lot of other West Africans.
Please note though that once you request for an eSim on your number, your sim card gets deactivated once the eSim is activated.
Okay so what if I need to change a new phone?
Glad you asked. In the case that you ever want to change a new phone, you’d simply need to take your phone and your Ghana card (this part is specially for Ghanaians) to MTN office and ask for sim replacement and you’ll have the eSim removed and back to your sim card for you. Easy peezy!
Another even easier way to remove an eSim for iPhone users is that you could hop right into your settings and delete your eSim. That basically takes your phone back to the ordinary phone it was before the eSim activation.
If you don’t get the crap I’m raving on about, you could simply call MTN office to be connected to an agent and they for sure will do a better job at explaining than I have. Lol
Also at this time, I don’t think we have eSims available for Vodafone yet, so yeah, sorry to the Vodafone fam. Looks like you’re going to have to go MTN if you want this now. Lol great marketing strategy, MTN.