My experience using an eSIM card has been mixed

Setting up an eSIM with my iPhone 14 Pro was simple.

I scanned the QR code Rogers sent me, and boom, it was loaded into my phone within two minutes.

Dealing with all the repercussions of not having a SIM card to move between phones was another story.

I did need to dive into the Cellular settings on my phone and remove my old number, which stayed in my phone since you can technically have a SIM card and an eSIM in most modern phones. Most people will need to keep both SIMs in their phones for a bit longer if they plan to move their old number to their new plan. This is because your old carrier will send you a verification text asking if you want to move your number over.

If you plan to do this, you need to call Rogers support and have your previous account number from your old plan handy. After a brief call, and verifying that I wanted to cancel my Telus plan, I was mostly set up.

However, for some reason, my iPhone was confused by this. I know the port forward worked because people could text and call my original number, but when I sent texts out, they came back as if I were the sender and receiver. The bug didn’t affect other people, but it made texting really annoying.

After about two days, my Rogers account finally updated over from the new number to my original, but my iPhone still wasn’t reading the new number. After some fiddling around with the phone I turned the SIM profile off and back on in the Cellular settings, and it switched to my original Ottawa Valley number.

However, that wasn’t my last hurdle. Since I switch phones often, I need a SIM card to move my data between devices physically. Realistically, this could be solved if the Rogers app could regenerate QR codes that could move my number from one phone to another, but it doesn’t. Apple has solved this by letting you move an eSIM from one nearby iPhone to a new phone, but it’s still limited and not nearly as convenient as just moving a small chip from one device to another.

Therefore, a support agent told me that I could go to a store and they should give me a free card and set it up. The next day I headed down to the Rogers store near me and told the sales associate my story. He having me a knowing nod, making me think this has happened before to him, and then set up a physical SIM for me in a few minutes.

After that, the eSIM was disabled in my phone, I popped in the new SIM, restarted my phone and was good to go. Oddly, the eSIM info stayed in my phone even though it had the same phone number as the new physical SIM. I simply deleted it from my Cellular settings and now everything runs just like normal.