LOS ANGELES—Apple's new iPhone XS, XS Max and XR are a potential revolution in how Americans pick their service plans. With their built-in eSIM, you'll be able to pick from a menu of carriers, switch at will, and add a second physical SIM if you feel like it or if your carrier doesn't support eSIM.

Apple's eSIM will not be enabled when the iPhone XS launches; it will "come later this year," Apple says. But in a perfect world where everyone buys their iPhones up front, this means people could swap carriers on demand when they see a better deal. Realistically in the US, most people are tied to monthly phone payment plans, so carrier churn won't be as vigorous. Still, carriers want to be on the list so they can win over customers, whether they're the big four US nationwide carriers or smaller, virtual players with lower monthly fees.

During the initial iPhone announcement, the list of US carriers that will support eSIM was missing a big one: Sprint. That's just an accident of timing, Sprint CTO John Saw told us at Mobile World Congress Americas.

"We will be [in the eSIM]," Saw said, although he didn't want to go on the record with a specific date.

Don't be too harsh on Sprint. Looking just over the border into Canada, Bell is the only one of the country's three carriers prepared for eSIM.

Catching Carriers by Surprise

I asked all the US carriers about Apple's eSIM here at MWCA, and they seemed enthusiastic, but a little bit taken aback.

"We see it as a good thing, for ease of switching, and we think people are interested in coming to us," T-Mobile's CTO Neville Ray said. "A lot of that eSIM stuff came pretty late in the process, so we're still figuring some things out."

Verizon, for instance, confirmed that all of its mainstream service plans will be available on the eSIM; AT&T and T-Mobile said they'd have to get back to me.

Lower-cost virtual carriers, meanwhile, are hustling to get onto that eSIM menu. Truphone and GigSky are the only two in the initial list, and they're focused on global roaming rather than low domestic rates.

AlwaysOnline Wireless, owned by Ting, is on the iPad but not the iPhone. Ting wants to get into the iPhone, said Michael Goldstein, the company's VP of sales.

"There is a bunch of engineering that needs to be done between Ting, Apple, Sprint, and T-Mobile and the eSIM platform providers to get Ting on the carrier menu of these new Apple devices," he said in an email.. "These are big companies and I do not know how soon it will happen. But this is a huge opportunity for us and we already have two feet in the door, with our current eSIM iPad placement and our direct Apple relationship."

Wing, a new virtual carrier on Sprint's network, said it's eager to figure out how to get onto that eSIM list.

"We're already switching users over from major carriers like Verizon and AT&T, and the iPhone eSIM will only make the switching process simpler," Wing spokeswoman Ayse Yasa said in an email, although they'll probably have to wait for Sprint to come online.

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