My understanding is the US carriers prioritize postpaid users also. AT&T has higher priority for it's First Responder subscribers, and as I mentioned, Verizon has a paid higher priority option on some plans. I highly suspect prepaid international roaming users are at or near the bottom of the priority list for most foreign carriers. Unfortunately for travelers, high user locations might impact available bandwidth, but they will still show a strong signal reading.

Foreign carriers in some countries explicitly offer prepaid packages with different top speeds in addition to quantity of data.

Also obviously they offer higher-priced packages which include 5G access.


You don't see this kind of segmenting on speed in Europe as much but definitely saw it in Thailand.

that’s a false assumption. The roaming services are typically picked by the roaming steering server of your SIM card which might not be the operator with the strongest signal.

In the Spring, I went to UK and bought a O2 travel sim from esim.net. Price was $23 for 50gb data for 30 days and it included a british phone number with unlimited calling and free data roaming througout Europe and free local calls in whatever country you are in. Generally it worked well, especially in cities. When we were in remote places (like some of the historic estates), coverage was poor but I think this is just a reflection of poor infrastructure in the UK. One thing to watch out for is that the 30 days starts at time of purchase, not when you first connect, so you don't want to buy this until the last minute.

We're going to Scotland, Finland, Baltics and Italy in the fall and plan to use this SIM again and see how well it does roaming. I'll give update when I return.

Two more things to keep in mind: 1) to get the $23 price, you need to sign up for auto renewal. However, if you don't need it more than 30 days, you can cancel auto renewal at any time. Very easy. 2) the 50gb limit is based on calendar month and is prorated. So if you bought on the 20th of a 30 day month, you'd get 33% of the 50gb in the first month and 67% in the 2nd month. Sort of dumb, but really didn't impact us as we didn't use that much data.

For details https://www.esim.net/

Just stayed in Dubai and they are blocking the purchase of eSIMs through various apps. I tried Airalo and RedteaGo. Latter just did not show any content while Airalo showed a message, that they are not allowed to sell ANY eSIM while I'm in Dubai. Buying an eSIM for Dubai from abroad works, however now requires KYC. Alternatively one could buy a Global SIM, more expensive but no bureaucracy required. In general I started to use Global eSIMs, Airalo and RedteaGo has both some for around 70 USD, 20 GB, 365 days. If you travel a lot it's much more convenient than fiddling with local eSIMs IMHO. Only disadvantage of a 365 days product is that you cannot move to another phone.

Do they say why?

Probably because people get around registration requirements in some countries.

There could be a sudden clamping down of the loophole — people avoiding registration by activating eSIMs to use mobile networks. Imagine if some terrorist use eSIMs while carrying out some attack. Some countries make hotels xerox passports because guests are using WiFi there.

One could think that but I'm not sure it's the reason. Dubai has always been slightly complicated with network access. For example WhatsApp calls are blocked unless you have some premium access, i.E. a so called premium SIM card (that costs more than the standard). It therefore might also just be connected to protect the revenue of their carrier.

As long as HK stays on this side of the Great Firewall, 3HK's eSIMs are great to beat this sort of stuff--8gb plus 5gb of "social data" for a year costs about 35 USD. They call it "global" and it works in most places but not all--when I lived in the Caribbean the only place it was useful was Miami. It's also a real carrier SIM so you don't have to wonder how your data is routed, and even if you don't buy local service you have a phone number. As of a few months ago you can reissue the eSIM from your online account for about 5 USD if you switch phones.

I often buy a local carrier's eSIM if I'm somewhere for more than a week, but for short trips, layovers and as a backup I keep the 3 line active. It worked great for Whatsapp calls last time I was in Dubai too :)

There is a KYC requirement, but noncompliance only results in service being blocked in Hong Kong.

E-sim newbie
 

I live in the UK and travel 2 or 3 times a year to the USA. The cost of roaming is expensive so I’d like to try an e-sim. But. I’m having trouble getting my head around how to actually use an e-sim. If someone can walk me through this I would be grateful:

- I live in the UK and have an unlocked iPhone 11 with a monthly UK plan using a physical sim.
- Can I just buy an e-sim (Airalo seems to have what I want) and install and activate in the UK right before I fly to the US?
- I think I only need a data only plan as I will only use iMessage, WhatsApp, FaceTime and Skype comms, is that correct, no phone number required?
- Once e-sim is purchased and installed, do I just select the e-sim in settings? Will that make my physical UK sim inactive (which is what I want) until I reselect it when I return to the UK?

Am I missing anything else?

Thank you for any help you can give.

The UK SIM can be off, or both SIMs can be active. Given the risk of roaming charges, I would remove the UK physical SIM. Also, the Airalo eSIM may not activate until you are in the US, but you can install it before you leave.

- You can install the eSIM but it will not activate until you land and turn it on in the US
- No phone number required
- Your cellular settings will show both your UK and eSIM. When I travel, I turn off roam on my home sim and turn roaming on on the eSIM (you have to do this for it to work) I set the eSIM to primary for data, and leave my local SIM as primary for phone so that any urgent calls would still come through.

I've used Airalo for years now and been very happy. I can share a referral code with you that gets you some discount (and some benefit to me if you use it), just PM me if you want it.

Why remove the sim? I have used a local sim with my domestic sim set to no roaming and cellular data turned off. My domestic sim uses WiFi for calls and texts. I have been using this approach since 2019 with various iPhones.

With the upcoming new iPhone, I'm going to make the jump up from my very old model (iPhone 8) to a 15 when they knock the price of the 15 down a notch or two upon release of the 16. With that will come eSIM capabilities. So, I feel the need to dive in with a basic question or two.

My current phone (the 8) uses a hard SIM with T-Mo. From experience setting up a relative's iPhone 13 (or 14), I know that during the upgrade, T-Mo will say "bye to your old phone and SIM card, hello to your new phone and eSim". OK, easy. Touch wood.

Now, I maintain a S. African (Vodacom) number on an iPhone 6 with a hard sim card. I use it in SA (duh!) and when in the USA, only turn it on, make a voice call or two (over either the Tmo or AT&T roaming voice network) and send and receive a few WhatsApps over wifi to keep the phone and number "alive" through regular usage.

If I'm understanding this new "multiple eSim" support on latest IPhones, it seems I can add the Voda number into the new phone as my "second" SIM (via eSIM). Side Q: if anyone has done this via Vodacom SA (particularly while NOT in SA) I'd appreciate tips.

But, here's my Qs. How do I choose which "number" (e.g. my US Tmo number or my Voda SA number) to "use" to make a call over the voice network? When I press the green "phone" button on the iPhone dialpad - do I get a pop-up that says s/s "Why SIM do you want to use?"

And, similarly - for data - I keep data roaming off on my SA iPhone when in the USA. How do I "set" the phone to choose the right number/SIM to send and receive data over the cell network? Can I keep the TMo data "on" all the time and toggle the SA Voda data "on, off, roaming"?

Thanks all. If this works, I may just by a EU SIM and as AUS one for my EU and AUS friends to be able to "dial local" to me.

On newer, dual sim iPhones the dialer keypad screen has a small pane at the top that has displayed the last resident number used for the line you are dialing. A tap will on it will open a popup “Select the line would like to use now.” And your options. Easy Peasy.

Also be aware that iPhone 12’s & newer will have 5G service, and on T-Mobile this is a valuable upgrade for coverage and data speeds.

Because not everyone is as careful or adept as you are. Even if you turn off data roaming, you will still get incoming phone calls on your home SIM. Having said that, my experience is with Android where you can turn a SIM off entirely. My overriding point is removing the home SIM makes it impossible to accidentally roam, so why not remove it?