Thank you for sharing this.
I’ve been dreading this change as well. Back when the iPhone 4 came out on Verizon they were still using CDMA (not GSM standards) which used something called an ESN (like an IMEI but far fewer characters in length) and each ESN had to be registered to the network in order for a phone to work. So you’d have to go through this provisioning process which was a total PITA every single time.
Verizon did have a fairly painless one compared to Sprint. Where you could dial a number and activate a new device that was tied to your account. And you could also manage your ESN associated with each number to a degree online.
Sprint had to have a customer service rep so everything and it generally took ages.
When I worked for the manufacturers in product development we’d usually send spreadsheets with tons of test devices to be “whitelisted” against our accounts so we could activate and test devices on the network.
And yeah we paid for every single line of service. No free testing. LOL
But this move back to a specific line tied to a specific device is tedious as hell. I’ve always hated it and think it’s a generally terrible idea. It just complicates number portability and access as well as device management.
But the paranoid corporations want more oversight and control and micromanagement if every single device connecting to their network.
I don’t see this trend reversing itself.
