You will need to have WiFi calling enabled. You will need to verify your carrier does not have geo restrictions for the country you are visiting. Another member mentioned a Swiss or German provider with geo restrictions for WiFi calling.

After several dozen trips with a dual sim iphone with primary sim set to roaming off and WiFi calling enabled, I have been charged international roaming once for about $11. I have since switched to a provider with no international roaming. So whatever mistake I made in Zurich will not reoccur. I can send and receive calls, texts and iMessages without incurring roaming charges.

That's correct. Unless you receive calls on you UK line, but you can choose to ignore those. Best switch off voicemail as well for the duration.

This basically is an update to my previous comments about Roamless features.

They currently have a coupon code that gives $3.75 credit to users. When you install their app, it also gives $1.25 credit for trial service, so combined you end up with $5 total credit on your account for free. The billing for calls varies by country, but most Euro countries are $.02 a minute. Some others are much higher, but most are not outrageous, some are: Madagascar=$.73, Jamaica=$.31, etc. The fact that this is unlimited term credit should make it worth considering I think. They also still have the $25 credit for $20 purchase, so I have built up an account level of nearly $30 of indefinite length. The code for the extra credit is: "ESIM5" without the quotes. For per Gb pricing, my cost has dropped to less than $1.65 for most Euro and many other roaming countries.
I placed a call to Singapore Air using their app from here in the US, and the quality was good, not great. I could understand the outgoing stock message, but it was slightly fuzzy. It could have been the quality of the message itself however. My account was charged $.01 for the call after I hung up after about 20 seconds. Edited to add: Singapore calls from the US are billed at $.03 a minute according to the app. BTW, the app is pretty nice, and easy to navigate. Once opened, you can go to the bottom of the screen and switch to "Calls" with a keypad. It is also easy to search a country, and then you will see the rates for your selection. Prices & Destinations appears on the opening screen.

So, just a heads up that you might want to save this for a rainy day and give it a workout when overseas on a trip. I have no affiliation or compensation from Roamless, I'm just another tech nerd traveler.

I now used Firsty "Free" in multiple countries, and I've got to say it pretty much works as advertised. Details in the post linked to above, but basically after watching an ad (10-30 seconds), you get 30 or 60 minutes of free "slow" internet. Slow in that it's fine for email/messaging/Maps/Uber/etc. Web browsing is possible, but not fun. Video/etc just isn't an option.

In other countries I've used this as access to get another eSim install, or whilst in transit, etc, and it's worked fine. But I've spent the past week in Dubai and decided to try using Firsty Free as my only provider. For this trip, I knew the vast majority of the time I'd be places with Wifi access, but I still needed something to bridge the gap when moving between those locations. So every time I was walking through the lobby of my hotel, or out of the office, etc, I'd fire up the FIrsty app, watch an ad, and then get enough internet to get me to the next location where I'd have wifi.

All up, it worked fine. I don't know that I'd do it again, and I certainly wouldn't for a location where I didn't know I'd be simply moving between a small number of locations all of which had wifi, but for this trip it was fine. On the last day I did activate the free 24-hour SIM card they give out when going through immigration as I knew I wasn't going to be near wifi much of that day - without the free SIM my plan was to instead try out Firsty's paid access, but in the end I didn't need to do that.

Wow -- that's an interesting offering that I've not seen before. The free version sounds like a slow version of what I have with my T-Mobile plan in the US, but with ads. The faster plan seems interesting, but there is n:( pricing on the web site other than "starting at..." prices.

I downloaded the app and tried it out. The free version seems abysmally slow -- far slower than the free data I get from T-Mobile. A speed test of the free version confirmed this and over a few tests showed a max speed of 120Kb/s down and 18Kb/s up. That is certainly better than no data. But compared to T-Mobile it doesn't get me anything. I might use this for their faster service, though, where for €1 or €2.5 it c;)uld be quite a bit more convenient than finding a local eSIM. Thanks, docbert!

ETA: The €1/day plan allows 700mb of data transfer per day. The €2.5/day plan allows tethering and offers 2gb of data transfer per day

Roaming data competition must be heating up. I have found a few more interesting, beneficial things about Roamless to pass along.

1. Their rating on The Apple App store is a very respectable 4.7/5 with 2300 reviews. Android and iOS esim versions are available.
2. The service is portable between devices. You delete it on current device and install & log in on another and your service has been transferred.
3. You can obtain up to $10 of free credit currently due to a few offers. $1.25 free trial, $3.75 credit with coupon ESIM5 code, and $25 credit with $20 purchase.
4. If you refer another user who makes a purchase, you and the referee each get $3 credit. I created an account for my wife, and we both now stand at $33 for $20 each.
5. Most calls to Euro countries from US or Europe are billed at $.02 a minute. Canada is $.01, Mexico $.02. Others are higher. Some absurdly high, Cuba $.98, St. Kitts $17.68 !
6. In the US, you can select between T-Mobile or AT&T carriers. Outside the US, calls are billed at different rates depending upon fixed land line or mobile connected carrier.

My current status is, after getting free credits and building up my Forever account level, my US and also Euro data cost is right at $1.50 per Gb vs. the published $2.45 Gb.
I just ran a test using Pandora Radio App for about an hour & a half at the gym on AT&T, and my account went down $0.15.

Lock your UK SIM to your home carrier as you depart. It will force your phone to WiFi calling over cellular on many phones. Alternatively, hard forward the phone to a landline with voicemail before you leave. My office phone has a direct dial and I get the voicemail calls as WAV files with a transcription.

For the Roamless esim service, there are some negatives that also need to be exposed. Here is my opinion of drawbacks to consider.

1. Many of the roaming 181 countries have high per Gb rates. The EU, UK, US, & CA are all at the $2.45 base Gb rate. Japan is $3.45 per Gb, calls@ $.03/.05 depending upon called carrier. India $8.45Gb, calls $.03/.05. Mexico $9.45Gb, $.02 calls. So it seems you need to consider using an alternate data service for visiting high data rate countries. Bear in mind that other roaming services generally have higher rates for data roaming for many countries also. I have a T-Mobile account that can fill in the gaps. Also remember that any promotional discounts will lower the average rate proportionately. As a call roaming feature it still seems to be a better value than the $.25 a minute T-Mobile charges me.
2. I saw no mention of text capability on the app or website. Their FAQ's does mention it is a "Coming Soon!" feature. With iOS devices I would expect iMessage to provide that service between Apple devices. Once again, T-Mobile bundles that service in my current roaming plan. Customer Service is very responsive, and just assured me that messaging is "On The Roadmap" for release in the near future. Their CS is amazing, and quite the exception for roaming services in my experience.

So, there is a Yin & Yang to Roamless pricing to consider. Data costs needs to be addressed when planning a trip, but the voice service might be a valuable add on to another data esim plan. I see the lifetime account credit as a major asset, and the app itself is a delight to use in comparison to many other services. With the discounts I mentioned in my previous post, you can have your balance also apply approximately a 40% discount to the data & calling rates otherwise charged.

I'll be visiting Spain & Portugal in a few weeks, and intend to use a few roaming plans then. I will make an effort to report my findings at that time.

Oddly, it's 3.8/5 on the google play store. In any event, I installed it for the 500mb free. The app has been easy to use. It appears to work so far, .

I have been using BNESim for backup data. It also roams on AT&T and TMO in the US, although it appears to prefer TMO. It generally works fine, but there are some areas it doesn't work, even though other providers that use one or both of those networks do work. This puzzles me.

With my Moto Razr+ I see a 4.0 rating in the Play Store, but I'm not a big Android user, so I can't tell if the device matters. I was using US Mobile for the past few months for selective US roaming and it works well, but I was mostly on their Warp/Verizon service. I also just edited the data rate in my posting about Japan. Either the update, or by mistake I had it listed as $3.95 per Gb, and currently it is listed as $3.45Gb. If you add the coupon code ESIM5, you should get another $3.75 credit to your Wallet. That may be dependent on you purchasing additional data.
I figure worst case, I can just keep this on hand for roaming calling on future trips. That was a big reason I had the US Mobile service @ $10 a month. It included free calls worldwide. I tried BNESim for a while but while roaming in the US, they kept telling me it wasn't included. The website said it was, and it worked, but eventually they shut it down.

https://www.usmobile.com/international-calling

USMobile clarified, not unlimited worldwide. (Eg Austria is 83 min while Australia is unlimited*

* Until it gets cut off for "abuse"
https://www.reddit.com/r/USMobile/co...t_on_outgoing/.


And obvious but should mention, BNESim/Roamless/Unisim is noexpiry (until your phone dies or the provider goes bankrupt. Some providers allow transfer to new phone ).

Unisim is interesting, allows roaming on a few unique providers for $$$ (GCI Alaska $60/GB or Sasktel Canada $6/GB). Too bad there's no cheap way to signup - minimum $6 topup, $2 esim fee unless you topup $15

In the US I use Google Voice for calls and messages. Most of the rest of the world uses Whatsapp.

$60 a gig?

And that's probably with relatively poor coverage?

for GCI Alaska? everything's pricey there, and AT&T will be next best in alaska
https://www.reddit.com/r/anchorage/c..._cell_service/

What probably occurs with your roaming dropouts is, AT&T and T-Mobile probably have roaming agreements with local carriers if they don't cover those areas. The MVNO's do not get the benefit of those local roaming deals (Because $$$), so the primary carrier loses service. I have seen this happen and it is a commonly reported issue on cellular forums.