Amarisoft

Device Testing using Amarisoft eSIM
version 2024-10-29*
This document is based on the latest test release.
Features may not be present in your current installed software. You may check their availability in your release documentation.
If you require an up to date release, ask for it in a ticket.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction

This application note gives you a brief background on eSIM followed by an overview of Amarisoft eSIM profile. It explains how to activate eSIM in your device and how to start testig with Amarisoft eSIM.

1.1 Background

eSIM stands for Embedded SIM which is a digital version of the physical SIM card. There are multiple differences between a physical SIM and an eSIM. The most obvious one is that a physical SIM is a removable chip while an eSIM is a chip built into a device. Yet, the main difference is the number of profiles that the SIM can handle. A profile is essentially a combination of data and applications such as the IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identifier), which enables the device to connect to the operator’s network.

Traditional UICC (Universal Integrated Circuit Card) SIMs store a profile from a single network operator. Each physical SIM card has a single ICCID (Integrated Circuit Card Identifier) which is a unique identifier of the physical SIM and is determined by the SIM supplier. The ICCID helps operators to identify and track SIMs and subscribers; it is typically linked to subscriber information and is part of the SIM profile.

An eSIM, however, is capable of storing multiple network profiles thanks to the eUICC (embedded Universal Integrated Circuit Card) component. The term eUICC is often used to mean the whole physical card or chip but it is also a secure element capable of management of multiple network profiles in an eSIM. In case of eUICC SIM, each profile acts as a virtual SIM within the physical SIM container and has its own ICCID. As a result, the ICCID can no longer be used as a unique identifier of an eUICC SIM as there will be as many ICCIDs as the number of profiles.

In order to resolve this issue, a new identifier EID (eUICC Identifier) has been introduced. The main purpose of the EID is to provide a unique global serial number for eUICC SIMs which is not related to service subscriptions. It is a 32-digit number set during the manufacturing process.

The following image captures the different notions explained above.

img/esim

Before using your device, an eSim should be provisioned. eSIM provisioning is the process of remotely activating an eSIM in a device, allowing it to connect to a mobile network or service provider.

A simple eSIM provisioning architecture is depicted in the following:

img/esim_arch

The different entities are:

2 Amarisoft eSIM

2.1 eSIM Profile

Amarisoft eSIM contains a test profile matching the default configurtion available in ue_db-ims.cfg which is located under mme/config directory.

ue_db: [{
    sim_algo: "xor", /* USIM authentication algorithm: xor, milenage or tuak */
    imsi: "001010123456789",
    amf: 0x9001, /* Authentication Management Field */
    sqn: "000000000000", /* Sequence Number */
    K: "00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff",

    impi: "001010123456789@ims.mnc001.mcc001.3gppnetwork.org",
    impu: ["001010123456789", "tel:0600000000", "tel:600"],
    domain: "ims.mnc001.mcc001.3gppnetwork.org",
    multi_sim: true, /* Experimental */
}

All eSIMs have the same IMSI and K as above in order to provide seamless operation with Amarisoft Core Network. The authentication algorithm is XOR and the home PLMN is set to test PLMN with MCC of 001 and MNC of 01.

Unlike the physical SIM card, the Amarisoft eSIM is not configurable.

2.2 eSIM Activation

The eSIM of your device could be activated in 2 ways:

2.3 eSIM states

An eSIM could be in 2 different states in the device:

An eSIM can also be deleted from the device. In this case, the eSIM profile becomes available for download on other devices.

The eSIM enabling/disabling/delete requires access to the Internet. So please make sure that your device has internet access via another SIM card or WIFI.

2.4 Network Configuration

As mentioned above, Amarisoft eSIM contains a test profile matching the default configuration available in ue_db-ims.cfg file. As a result, any device with Amarisoft eSIM can register to Amarisoft network without requiring any configuration change. Some devices, however, use a 16 byte response during authentication while Amarisoft core network expectes an 8 byte response. If the registrayion fails, checking the core network logs allows to verify if the authentication failure is due to the lenght of the UE authentication response. If this is the case, follow these guidelines:

3 Additional Information

This document is copyright (C) 2012-2024 Amarisoft. Its redistribution without authorization is prohibited.

This document is available without any express or implied warranty and is subject to change without notice. In no event will Amarisoft be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this document.

For any technical issue, please raise a ticket from our support site at https://support.amarisoft.com/.
To learn more about our technology and solutions, e-mail us at customer@amarisoft.com or visit https://www.amarisoft.com.