So just an update, the €15 MEO eSIM that I purchased, I ended up using 110 GB over 5-6 days. I would say that's definitely unlimited.

Speeds fluctuated from time to time with the top end speed being over 1000 Mbps sometimes.

One thing though, on returning to the US, I connected in MUC and it did not roam to a local network at all, even though I thought it was suppose to have some nominal amount of roaming data in the EU.


On my Orange eSIM, I used about 82 GB over 18 days.

Again great in case you get stuck with slow hotel wifi or in my case, wifi doesn't work in hotel room.

I stayed a night in Lisbon up part of the hill where Castelo St. George is. It's a narrow street with pretty tall buildings. I was on the second floor of a hotel (3rd floor in the US) and MEO really had a weak signal whereas NOS, when I switched to the Orange eSIM, got decent speeds.


Hope direct eSIM sales become more common across the EU but I know some of these countries require password registration so they may not set up the infrastructure to take uploads of your passport scan.

Earlier this year, I bought a direct eSIM from Telstra but other Aussie carriers don't offer the same. But they actually run your passport number against the ETA database, which contains your information when you pay for an ETA visa to enter the country.

Hopefully though more carriers try to find easier ways to distribute and sell prepaid eSIMs online.

The other positive trend, they're offering more data than say 5-10 years ago at reasonable prices. Anyone who used to get prepaid data back in the 3G days would remember how sparse and expensive it used to be. At least with 4G and 5G, they are offering larger data bundles and there must be a growing market because large data bundles are more common now.