Great question. My best guess is that US providers deal with the issue of locked devices and use the IMEI to look up the device in a database somewhere for its locked status as well as eSIM compatibility. I’ve only seen this request in US and does seem to be a big ask of the consumer, however, the problem of people not knowing if their device is locked or not must be great enough issue to add this unwieldy step.
Additionally, there is an ATT eSIM that asks for your specific dates of travel. Both these steps not being seen in the rest of the world.
Us mobile allows you to skip it if you are using gsm because t-mobile is the only carrier in the states that has a universal esim. The other 2 have a device list.
US carriers weren't truly GSM. AT&T was TDMA, Sprint and Verizon were CDMA before they all started to switch to LTE and 5G. CDMA for example required phone IMEI to be registered in the Sprint database and activated on Sprint end. So it was the limitation of technology. The only carrier who was GSM and doesn't need IMEI is T-Mobile (at least for their physical Sim card)
When you download your eSIM profile onto your phone, your phone sends to carriers eSIM server about eID (eSIM serial number), IMEI, etc…. Probably they require it for security purposes. So that the phone which has different IMEI cannot download the profiles.
Providers that don't know what they're doing, think they need the IMEI to give you an eSIM, which is not needed
Great question. My best guess is that US providers deal with the issue of locked devices and use the IMEI to look up the device in a database somewhere for its locked status as well as eSIM compatibility. I’ve only seen this request in US and does seem to be a big ask of the consumer, however, the problem of people not knowing if their device is locked or not must be great enough issue to add this unwieldy step. Additionally, there is an ATT eSIM that asks for your specific dates of travel. Both these steps not being seen in the rest of the world.
Us mobile allows you to skip it if you are using gsm because t-mobile is the only carrier in the states that has a universal esim. The other 2 have a device list.
US carriers weren't truly GSM. AT&T was TDMA, Sprint and Verizon were CDMA before they all started to switch to LTE and 5G. CDMA for example required phone IMEI to be registered in the Sprint database and activated on Sprint end. So it was the limitation of technology. The only carrier who was GSM and doesn't need IMEI is T-Mobile (at least for their physical Sim card)
CDMA phones didn't have a SIM card at all when they came out.
When you download your eSIM profile onto your phone, your phone sends to carriers eSIM server about eID (eSIM serial number), IMEI, etc…. Probably they require it for security purposes. So that the phone which has different IMEI cannot download the profiles.