I’ve been desperately holding onto my physical SIM for the last few years as more carriers have made the shift to eSIM. But I finally bit the bullet on eSIM, and after my last phone upgrade, I won’t look back.
On paper, eSIM sounds great! No more fiddling with tiny SIM card trays or easy-to-lose ejector tools, easy access to dual SIM setups and near-instant setup, to name a few benefits. But the main thing that has held me back is phone-to-phone transfers.
Many Canadian carriers make moving an eSIM to a new phone a frustrating experience. There’s a lack of support for eSIM migration tools, and often customers are forced to go through their carrier to complete what should be a very simple task — and likely they’ll get slapped with fees too. (I’ll specifically call out Telus-owned Public Mobile here, since I ran into this specific issue with them in 2024 — Public charges $5 to move an eSIM to another phone. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s ludicrous to charge for something as simple as scanning a QR code.)
That’s why I’ve tried to stick with physical SIMs, which I can easily move from one device to another without needing to involve a carrier or pay any fees. However, earlier this year I switched to Freedom Mobile to take advantage of the crazy $40/250GB it offered during the spring. Circumstances at the time led me to sign up with eSIM. I figured I’d eventually come to regret that decision, but thankfully Freedom actually has proper support for device-to-device eSIM migration. Much to my surprise, it’s even easier than a physical SIM.
Over the weekend, I had to swap over to a new phone I’m testing for an upcoming review. I can’t say which phone, but you can probably guess based on recent releases. I started the typical data transfer process to move my stuff over to the new phone when I noticed something new (to me, at least): moving my eSIM was listed alongside my apps, photos, and other stuff. Curious to see what would happen, I hit start on the data transfer — 20 minutes later, all my stuff was moved over, the new phone was connected to Freedom’s network, and I was getting texts and calls without any issues.
The eSIM transfer itself happened almost immediately after I started the data transfer. My old phone disconnected from the cellular network, and I saw the cell signal indicator pop up on the new phone with a little exclamation mark next to it, which usually means there’s an issue with the data connection. Because the new phone was still bringing over all my other data, I couldn’t poke around the settings to figure out why, exactly, the exclamation mark was there, but it disappeared by the time the data transfer completed.
And that was it! I didn’t have to do anything else myself. While moving a physical SIM card isn’t exactly strenuous, it usually comes with a side of fiddling with settings on both phones to make sure things like RCS work properly and that my data connects as intended. But the eSIM transfer seemed to take care of all those little issues for me. Plus, I got a handy email from Freedom letting me know my eSIM was transferred successfully (along with a number to call if I hadn’t initiated the transfer). No charges, no issues, just a simple, quick transfer.
Plus, I can move my eSIM back to my old phone, or to another device, fairly easily as well. From the settings app, I can tap to add an eSIM, and then choose to transfer it from another device. When I pressed that, my new phone immediately displayed a pop-up asking for my confirmation to begin an eSIM transfer. And if direct device-to-device transfers fail for some reason, I can still log into my Freedom account and generate an eSIM QR code to scan instead.
All this is to say, if you’ve been holding off on adopting eSIM — for good reason! — you might finally be able to make the jump, depending on your carrier. Most Canadian carriers have an eSIM support page that details things like device compatibility and feature support. It’s worth checking those resources first to make sure your provider supports the features you need (and doesn’t charge extra for them) before making the leap to eSIM.