No issues activating Fi on the eSIM on my P3XL this weekend as a 2nd line. My primary line is a physical T-Mo SIM.
So far, works great, just wish I could find a way to be able to text from my Tmo number while active on the Fi sim card.

But the roaming feature seems pretty good. I think it said I can roam in around 100 countries around the world? If so, why isn't it a good option if I don't live in or near France?

See the other thread--it's a monthly contract plan. You can't just pay a couple months and then let it go--you get a bill for €20 every month until you send a registered letter to cancel (on paper, in the mail. Vive la France!). You can't pause. And you can only sign up in person in France.

For occasional use where you can't use cheap prepaid eSIMs (e.g. your phone doesn't support them, or you go to countries where they don't exist), Fi is still a pretty good deal since you can pause and resume it at will. Fi auto-resumes after 90 days, but there's nothing stopping you from going right back in and pausing again; before we cancelled it, we had Fi paused for 11 months out of 12--every 90 days we paid for 1 day of service :)

I have this Contract they don't care how long you will use it abroad. I am using free since 2 Years abroad in Germany

Many french company's have travelsims so you should use them outside of France

Just Google orange holiday and boygues travelsim

I understand you and I'm aware that it has to be signed up in person in France. €20/month for 25GB is a pretty good deal. When I quickly went through the website, it only shows a map. It would be great to see a list. I recognize I'll have a French number, but as long as Free lets me use it within the 100 countries continuously, then why not? Do they accept US credit cards? Other than Fi having the ability to pause service, why should I pick Fi over Free?

Yeah, the only reports I've heard of Free busting people for excessive roaming are people who are really abusing it and costing them money (e.g. using the whole 25gb in Canada for a couple months). I use them here in Belgium and know several others here and in NL who do as well, without incident.

The French prepaid travelsims are a pretty crap deal, though--even Belgian prepaid is better, and UK or Italian prepaid is better still. The French seem to have a very strong preference for month-to-month contract plans, so prepaid offers in France are generally pretty lame.

The same page as the map has (most of) the list of countries. The details for the plan (page 3 of this PDF) have the full list, including which countries include voice roaming (EU/EFTA, US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, NZ and Israel) and which don't (the rest). Their "100 countries" claim is a stretch since they count places like Jersey, the Isle of Man, and Sicily as "countries". I can't speak for the shops but the kiosks take US credit cards (or at least did when I signed up :D ).

Fi vs. Free is sort of an apples-to-oranges comparison; Fi has a lot more flexibility, free data SIMs, and English-speaking support, plus the roaming is included in a lot more places. Free is significantly cheaper as soon as you use any real amount of data, but support is only in French (and not that helpful anyway). A better comparison to Free is T-Mobile or Sprint's postpaid plans that include roaming, though those obviously cost a lot more since North America is an expensive place to run a cell network.

If you spend enough time in countries Free covers that €240/yr is worth it, go for it! But if you're in North America and use it as your primary phone, don't be too surprised if you get busted eventually.

ETA: you can actually sorta 'pause' Free by switching to the €2/mo plan (which includes 50mb/mo of data, basically useless in 2020). You can only do it at the end of the month and there's a €10 fee to switch. Switching back to €20/mo is free.

But you said you're primarily using it in Belgium and I think another guy said he's using it in Germany. So what's the big deal with using it exclusively in North America and Asia?

The rates EU carriers can charge each other are capped by regulation and they tend to be relatively cheap anyway.

I guarantee you Free pays significantly more per gb to AT&T than they pay BASE, KPN, O2, etc.

The only people I've heard of getting busted were roaming outside Europe for months and using tons of data.

Hi, saw your comments from waaay back and have interest in an app like Llama Locations.

Any idea where might I find current info on adjusting Fi’s wifi to cellular switching?


Thx

So far so good
 

Nov 2019, used Fi flawlessly in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. Best travel sim I ever used. Came back home and went back to verizon, decided I liked Fi so much, have switched the whole family over. So far so good. Teenage daughters seem happy, so must all be working. Really look forward to traveling again and not worrying about switching sims, and everything just working right off the plane. Could dial numbers exactly as they appear etc. We are on IPhones, hopefully google will allow for the cell switching service and WI-FI calling soon. There is a work around to use google voice for WI-FI calling anyways.

Can you share what you know about that work-around?

you need to create another google profile, log in under that and you are basically good to go, you will need to have the google voice and/or hangouts forward to a number other than the fi phone number for incoming calls. Do a search on google, but it works, and I am not that tech savvy, I don't really use hangouts, but as far as I can tell it is set up and good to go. For sure my google voice works, because I use it often.

That workaround is only necessary if you want to receive calls in Hangouts (or if you want to keep a number alive while Fi is paused). If you're interested mainly in making calls, you can simply install the Hangouts app on your iPhone and use it to make calls over data (wifi or cell). Receiving calls in Hangouts isn't possible on your Fi number but making them is.

On Android, it's just as easy but remember that you have to have the "Hangouts Dialer" app as well.

I could not get voice to work when it was signed in as the same profile as fi?

You can't have Voice and Fi on the same account. But you can use Hangouts to make calls and send/receive SMS from your Fi account. On the phone with the Fi SIM, you can't use it to receive calls, though.

You have to enable Hangouts integration for Fi: https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6188337?hl=en