Originally Posted by
GMTmin8
I would appreciate any recommendations or recent experiences with e sims for Japan.
A nephew with iPhone wants data only for 10 days.
Most recent info I found was 2023.
Probably Ubigi on Docomo while in Japan.
Prepaid SIM discussion (consolidated)
Originally Posted by
docbert
Comparing the prices on trip.com above and Yoho for Japan, they are within a few cents of each other regardless of which option I pick, both are listing the same networks (KDDI/Softbank) and both offer 128kbps after you run out of data, so I'm going to guess they are, once again, both reselling the exact same product from someone else. I'm sure there's probably 50 other eSIM sellers I could find that are offering the same...
It certainly can seem that they're all the same on the surface, especially with travel specific eSIMs reselling some HK carrier's roaming network or rebundled MVNO. But then even same network factors like QCI, 4g vs 5g network & band availability & crowding, dns geolocation if it is a local MVNO can speed or slow some queries. Pitflyer's post is an interesting comparison of several travel marketed eSIMs at DisneySea opening hour (major load & performance test as basically the entire entrance crowd tries to secure same-day reservations). Most non-technical people probably don't want to weed through such details, though. Agree that plenty of major city travelers can probably lower expectations and be fine if they adjust their usage habits a bit.
I'd guess it effectively matters during high density + high demand (in burst) like at Disney opening, Osaka Expo, and some rush hour transit lines. Broadcasting live streams while moving about on legacy carriers postpaid with optimal QCI still seems iffy at times so expecting tourist eSIMs to perform well under those conditions is probably expecting too much.