Mobile industry has stifled eSIM—and the DOJ is demanding change

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The US Department of Justice has given its tentative approval to a wireless-industry plan to revise eSIM standards, saying that new safeguards should prevent carriers from colluding against competitors in the standards-setting process. But the DOJ warned the industry that it must eliminate anti-competitive provisions from the current eSIM standard or face possible antitrust enforcement.

The DOJ last year began investigating AT&T, Verizon, and the GSMA, a trade group that represents mobile carriers worldwide. The antitrust enforcer found that incumbent carriers stacked the deck against competitors while developing an industry standard for eSIM, the embedded SIM technology that is used instead of removable SIM cards in new smartphones and other devices.

In theory, eSIM technology should make it easier to switch carriers or use multiple carriers because the technology doesn't require swapping between physical SIM cards. But how it works in practice depends heavily on whether big carriers dominate the standard-setting process.

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