Hi Michael_D
Thanks for your input. I can now add further to the info, but I'm away at a convention so can't make much progress until I return home on Sunday 12th October.
I had a conversation on my previous phone (an iPhone 13 purchased October 2023) with two EE tech advisers (Plymouth and Newcastle) on Thursday 9th October. They were most helpful. The iPhone 13 has iOS 18.7.1.
- They guided me to a couple of different conclusions. The phone I have purchased is a nearly-new second-hand unit (apparently Dec 2023), and I have no complaints about the appearance, or the battery life. It identifies as an iPhone 15, with 256Gb, with Model Number MTLY3LL/A but its sub-number is A2846. I understand this to mean it was originally manufactured for the US market. My information is (and the EE advisers confirmed) that this model normally had no SIM drawer and relied on eSIM. Everymac.com suggests the 5G network coverage of this model exceeds what is required for UK/EU operation .. "is technically compatible with carriers around the world as long as they support eSIM".
- Despite this, my phone has a SIM drawer. This definitely works for certain SIMs, with the contacts upward. The working ones include the EE sim from my wife's phone, and one EE PAYG SIM I bought for confirmation. Both seemed to give a connection and signal bars appeared. It looks as if the drawer might accept a SIM inserted from underneath but I have not yet pursued that.
- The phone went through a fast transfer of the data from my iPhone 13. I did not erase the 13 at that point. In due course it will be inherited by a family member, and I will erase it then. As part of the transfer Apple wanted to update iOS on the new phone (iPhone 15) to 26.0.1. I seemed to have no alternative to this. That was when the troubles started, and I reported these in my first post.
- The EE advisers invited me to remove my own EE contract SIM from my iPhone 13 (while on the call to them). To my surprise, the call did not end, and the conclusion was that the iPhone 13 was not using the physical SIM but an eSIM. I have no recollection of obtaining an eSIM for the '13 and seem to have no correspondence from EE about such a change which would have had to be since October '23. I am therefore wondering if EE had been able to clone the physical SIM in the '13 and disable it (by a Carrier Update?) without me having to be aware. That would explain why the physical SIM from the 13 did not work in the 15 while others did.
- But there was no option to Add a new eSIM to the iPhone 15, so the EE Advisers were seeking to restore this.
- Under the guidance of the Advisers I did both a Network Reset and later, a Reset All Settings on the 15.
- That has left me with a greyed-out option for Cellular, so I cannot access the sub-menu for handling SIMs. There is still no Add a new eSIM menu option.
- In Settings > General > About, Carrier Lock says No Sim Restrictions. There is a Front Sim and a Back SIM IMEI parameter and they are different, though there are no physical SIMS in there.
- Since the two Resets, the '15 no longer reports a carrier, but there was most definitely an EE section prior to the Resets.
- For the record, my iPhone 13 reports EE 64.1 in Settings > About > Network Provider
Unless I hear advice to the contrary, when I get back home to fast internet, I plan to do a full reset of the iPhone 15 and re-copy the data from my iPhone 13. I plan to leave the physical SIM out of the '13, and see if it is possible to:
1 - transfer the eSIM from the 13 to the 15. Forums say the phones have to have the same iOS version. I am not sure about upgrading my 13 to iOS 26.0.1 as Forums suggest there are issues with SIMS for 26.
2 - Or, obtain a replacement physical SIM from my local EE store
3 - if none of these succeeds I will return the phone to the seller.
Does this seem reasonable? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
