Originally Posted by
docbert
Not all of the carriers require this. eg, Amaysim will sell you an eSIM via their website and will currently sell you 50GB/28days for $10, or 60GB/28 days for $12 (although these deals come and go as you say). You can activate the account and the eSIM via their website, however as has been said previously there are government regulations that will require you to enter ID details, and if you're a foreigner that'll need to be a foreign passport that has been used to pass through immigration (ie, you can't activate until you're already it the country - although I'm pretty sure you can buy the eSIM, you just need it to activate it)
Yeah I haven't looked at the MVNOs.
Maybe they're more willing to accommodate visitors than the main carriers.
We can only hope that more carriers offer "direct" sales of prepaid eSIMs, basically let you order on a website and they email you a QR code.
Mainline carriers seem more conservative and if they offer eSIM at all, it may be mainly for postpaid customers, at least at the start.
The mainline carriers in many countries have an infrastructure of stores and sometimes, the store employees seem uninterested in selling prepaid data, would rather sign you to a postpaid contract.
Plus some carriers seem to require you to activate a physical SIM and then they will convert it to an eSIM for you. However, many store employees seem disinterested in doing these conversions, which take time, doesn't net then a new sale.