Smartphones have used physical sim cards to connect to cellular networks for decades now. ESIM has become a generic term used worldwide to describe a new vector of mobile connectivity for consumers and IoT devices in just a few years. One of the main reasons we haven't seen manufacturers bringing more Smartphones with E-sim is because Android lacks good support for multiple E-sims.
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Benefits of E-SIM -
Unlike a physical SIM card that is inserted into a device, an E-sim is a chip that is directly mounted to the motherboard of a device.
It improves reliability and network security while reducing the space requirements which gives the manufacturers some more space to put more user-desired features like a battery with more capacity or vice versa.
Unlike a physical SIM card that is inserted into a device, an E-sim is a chip that is directly mounted to the motherboard of a device.
It improves reliability and network security while reducing the space requirements which gives the manufacturers some more space to put more user-desired features like a battery with more capacity or vice versa.
Google's Solution to this-
Recently an MEP (Multiple Enabled profiles) implementation has been spotted in the codebase of Google's upcoming Android 13. It was a patent submitted by Google in late 2020 according to which MEP permits several SIM profiles to run on a single integrated chip. This is made possible by dividing the physical data bus that connects the E-sim chip and modem to many logical interfaces.
To make this work, Google is creating logical interfaces that are multiplexed on a single physical interface. Each logical interface will provide an independent communication channel between a SIM profile and modem so that there will be a single actual physical connection to the modem. No re-routing of wires is needed. Thus existing Smartphones with a single E-sim chip connected to a modem can theoretically support MEP. From the modem’s point of view, there’s no difference between a logical and physical interface, thus allowing for backward compatibility with current implementations.
Recently an MEP (Multiple Enabled profiles) implementation has been spotted in the codebase of Google's upcoming Android 13. It was a patent submitted by Google in late 2020 according to which MEP permits several SIM profiles to run on a single integrated chip. This is made possible by dividing the physical data bus that connects the E-sim chip and modem to many logical interfaces.
To make this work, Google is creating logical interfaces that are multiplexed on a single physical interface. Each logical interface will provide an independent communication channel between a SIM profile and modem so that there will be a single actual physical connection to the modem. No re-routing of wires is needed. Thus existing Smartphones with a single E-sim chip connected to a modem can theoretically support MEP. From the modem’s point of view, there’s no difference between a logical and physical interface, thus allowing for backward compatibility with current implementations.
Source - Esper
Author - Ayush Ray
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