Overview
T-Mobile Acquired Sprint on April 1, 2020 for $26 billion which helped expand T-mobile’s network taking in over 127 million customers. One could speculate that by replacing a Sprint customer’s SIM would be a simple fix, correct? That was what I assumed, too however, T-Mobile had conversion complexity when they provisioned users from Sprint.
CHALLENGE(S)
Design a simple process assisting 127-million existing Sprint users and provision their mobile phone and smart watch devices and pSIM to T-Mobile’s eSIM network.
SOLUTION(S)
Predict multiple scenarios, including any and all edge cases as possible, to assist Sprint users that migrated to T-Mobile’s Network.
PRODUCT TEAM
Scrum Master: 1
Tech Product Managers: 3
Product Managers: 3
Engineers: 2
Developers: 6
Product Designers: 2
UX METRIC(S)
JTD
Benchmarking
My ROLE
To provide context before delving into my assignment, it’s important to familiarize yourself with these relevant abbreviations.
• SIM – (Subscriber Identity Module)
• pSIM – (Physical Subscriber Identity Module)
• eSIM – (Embedded Subscriber Identity Module)
• MNP – (Mobile Network Provider), for Japan
• MVNP – (Mobile Virtual Network Provider), for Japan
• MNO – (Mobile Network Operator)
• MVNO – (Mobile Virtual Network Operator)
A SIM is a tiny electronic chip, the size of your pinky nail, which is used to help telecommunication networks identity a user and subscribes them to a paid service network. If you travel to another country, you are identified as another ID and notifies you and the network operator you’ve subscribed to let you know that you need to pay (or borrow) for a new network. Without Wi-fi, you will not be able to call or receive telecommunications. You would typically visit a mobile phone store, such as AT&T or Orange, and subscribe to their network. If you are visiting for a short time, you most likely will “borrow’ on their network using an MVNO (or MVNP for Japan). Long-term stays overseas, you will most likely get the MNO (MNP for Japan). Upon purchasing a number, the service provider will open the SIM tray on your mobile phone and “swap out” the SIM and then you are able to make phone calls and send/receive texts, depending on the service you purchased.
Time to enter the Matrix…
As mentioned above, Sprint had 127 million customers. Each customer had either an iPhone, Android or Google phone. Some had more than one. Older iPhones and older Androids only utilized pSIMs and newer models used both eSIMs and pSIMs. The new iPhone 15 does not have any pSIM bays, so it can only take eSIMs. By the end of the Sprint acquirement, Sprint will not sell the iPhone 15 model. That means that T-Mobile needed to migrate 3 different SIM scenarios from 2 different Smart phone makers with either a smartwatch already paired or more.
Some had Apple watches or Google watches or both! If their watch received phone calls, it had cellular access meaning that it has an eSIM inside it (when Smartwatches were created for the cellular network, they utilized the eSIM to save space and reduction of complexity).
Now that we understand the situation, how can we provision these Google Phone/ Android / iPhone users, with pSIMs and smart watches with one or more number associated with their smartphones on MNO and MVNO over to the T-Mobile network that ONLY provides eSIMs in a seamless experience? Keep in mind, Sprint customers may be quite pissed and disgruntled about this migration. Some of the services they now need to upgrade and pay more for causes more anger. How might we make this a pleasant experience?
This was my role for this quite complex and very important intiative.
TAKE AWAYS
Thankfully, I had previous experience with SIMs, mobile devices and their complexities with MNO (Mobile Network Operators). I was familiar with the learning curves that users experience interacting with SIMs. A simple research was conducted (2021) where we identified personas who helped me keep my design execution in-check and guide me with the user in mind.
What I found was interesting was that the American consumer was more versed and aware of what an eSIM was (37%), unlike the Japanese consumers (12%). This still tells us that 63% (25% have no knowledge of an eSIM and 42% somewhat have knowledge of what an eSIM is) have ‘no’ or ‘somewhat’ of an understanding of what an eSIM is. Our empathy instructs us that we should design for the 26% who know nothing at all what an eSIM is.