The T-Mobile-Sprint merger could mean the end of the physical SIM card
Amelia Krales / The Verge
The Department of Justice may have just done more to help eliminate those little plastic SIM cards you have to use to get your phone working on a wireless carrier than all of the efforts of big tech over the past four years. That’s because it is requiring both Dish and T-Mobile to support eSIM technology as a condition of its merger approval.
What seems like a wonky side-detail in a blockbuster merger approval announcement, just an extra technical requirement, could end up changing not just how your phone gets online, but also (eventually) the way phones are built. It’s not going to happen overnight — the process will probably take years — but this small proviso in the merger approval could affect much more than who can sell wireless…
