Telstra joins Vodafone and Optus offering eSIM for iPhone 11 and other compatible devices

A little over a month ago Vodafone quietly announced support for eSIM across Apple iPhone and iPad devices. Today, Telstra have announced eSIM is coming to Telstra from Friday.

Co-incidentally Friday is launch day for the new iPhone 11, and while eSIM support has been available across all our telcos for smart watches, it has taken some time to get it across mobile and tablet devices.

An eSIM is a built-in SIM card that can be programmed to work for any telco simply by registering.

Here’s how it works. You grab an eSIM card from any telco – these might look the same as traditional grab and go SIM packs, but there is no physical SIM card inside.

Instead, inside is a QR code which you can simply scan with a compatible mobile device to active a mobile service.

For the most part eSIM enabled devices are dual-SIM, meaning you can have a physical SIM card from one Telco, and enable the eSIM with a second telco.

For people with work and personal phones, this is a game changer. And it’s about bloody time.

Optus (quietly it seems) launched eSIM support in April this year. Good to know. Shame they didn’t tell us.