I’m in Chile right now. I have a local phone number and 20 gb for 30 days. eSIMs are amazing. I paid by at least 4x, getting Movistar through an app before I left, but my phone worked on the tarmac and I got to spend my first day exploring, rather than looking for a mobile shop.
8 USD per month for unlimited data (100GB FUP) and unlimited calls to all network. Including unlimited high speed data for social media and gaming, no data cap. Malaysia.
Judging by the prices in the various countries I’ve lived in, in Europe, mobile data prices are a pretty good indication of a cartel.
In my experience Germany is one of the worst (by comparison to what you quoted, I use to get unlimited 4G in the UK for £10/month some years ago) though my own country, Portugal, is even worse.
I bet there were “radio spectrum” or “mobile operator license” auctions won by a handful well connected large companies and there’s nothing in the law forcing them to open their networks…
I pay that for 20GB, it’s so fucking shitty having to be vigilant about your data spending, then they do a research here where they say most people don’t spend the majority of their data. Of course we fucking don’t, if you do you can’t access ANY online service, you don’t get shitty speeds you get no internet at all so most people don’t risk it by going through the limit.
If you have a pixel 8 I actually had to bring mine back because the modem would regularly just fail to send text messages or failed to do the proper handshake for a data connection
Interesting that you’ve had such a negative experience with Google Fi. My job requires regular relocation around the globe plus frequent international travel. I have yet to visit a country where it doesn’t work for the ~10 years I have been with them.
Currently in Tokyo from UK, paid for an Airalo esim before I arrived, and I was pretty impressed with how cheap and easy it’s been- and that’s with 20gbs data, which I’ve barely used.
My service provider O2 would have charged me £7 a day with their O2 travel bolt-on, but would have still been my usual contract of unlimited calls, texts and data, just that the data would have been throttled a fair bit. This is a lot more reasonable than it used to be, but still would have amounted in a large bill compared to the one off $18 esim.
Used Airalo in the EU last year, only complaint was it took a few hours for the data to work reliably, but it was 100% after that. I’ve recommended it to everyone I know traveling.
Since way back in the 90s, everytime I stayed somewhere for longer than a week (or I really really needed mobile data) I would simply buy a local pay-as-you-go SIM for it.
This has been made even simpler to do with the advent of dual SIM phones were you can have a SIM for calls with your personal phone number and a different SIM for data.
Further, here in the EU ever since they passed some legislation some years ago, mobile operators can’t charge extra for roaming within the EU so none of that is even needed anymore if you’re just travelling withing the EU.
What exactly is the great advantage of eSIMs if you have a dual SIM phone?!
In some countries it’s not easy like walking in to a store and getting a prepaid card. You need to have an ID and a local address, probably to prevent bad events which use sims cards. A travel sim could be easier but more expensive.
eSIM is much easier and can be activated using an app.
That’s like saying that the advantage of DRM in media files is that consumers are forced to use it.
The only advantage for consumers I see for eSIMs is that they can be bought online and digitally delivered, so mild convenience, which is nice, but not quite as amazing or filling a great necessity as the OP tries to make it sound like.
Beyond that, well it creates new business models and is probably cheaper for mobile phone makers, which are advantages for others, but not for consumers since the barriers to entry in the mobile arena that make it prone to cartels aren’t in the provision of SIMs, they’re in things like radio spectrum licensing so eSIMs aren’t going to cause a price revolution in that market.
The problem I had with products like Airalo is that if you are traveling and need to actually call a hotel, excursion, or any company in the country you are visiting you cannot do that with just a data eSIM like Airalo.
Sure you could use WiFi calling maybe but in my experience when I really needed to call someone I had to switch back to my original carrier and incur the $10/day fee.
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I’m in Chile right now. I have a local phone number and 20 gb for 30 days. eSIMs are amazing. I paid by at least 4x, getting Movistar through an app before I left, but my phone worked on the tarmac and I got to spend my first day exploring, rather than looking for a mobile shop.
Size of card aside, the notion of getting local provider sims or pay-as-you-go SIMs while traveling has been a thing in Europe for at least 20 years.
I prefer to use my pocket wifi that uses sim card for data. Then I can share my data with my partner or/and friends.
Me in india paying 10 dollars for 3 months with 450 GB data and unlimited calls lol.
Western internet prices are insane
8 USD per month for unlimited data (100GB FUP) and unlimited calls to all network. Including unlimited high speed data for social media and gaming, no data cap. Malaysia.
15€/month, unlimited 5G data (no data cap), France.
Still almost 5 times higher (even though pretty cheap!)
20gb for 20EUR in Germany on a pay as go plan.
Judging by the prices in the various countries I’ve lived in, in Europe, mobile data prices are a pretty good indication of a cartel.
In my experience Germany is one of the worst (by comparison to what you quoted, I use to get unlimited 4G in the UK for £10/month some years ago) though my own country, Portugal, is even worse.
I bet there were “radio spectrum” or “mobile operator license” auctions won by a handful well connected large companies and there’s nothing in the law forcing them to open their networks…
I pay that for 20GB, it’s so fucking shitty having to be vigilant about your data spending, then they do a research here where they say most people don’t spend the majority of their data. Of course we fucking don’t, if you do you can’t access ANY online service, you don’t get shitty speeds you get no internet at all so most people don’t risk it by going through the limit.
Convert it into median wage working hours and it all makes sense
It only means that the prices are adjusted to get the most out of what people have, not that it costs what its worth
deleted by creator
free trial tmobile (esim)
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If you have a pixel 8 I actually had to bring mine back because the modem would regularly just fail to send text messages or failed to do the proper handshake for a data connection
Interesting that you’ve had such a negative experience with Google Fi. My job requires regular relocation around the globe plus frequent international travel. I have yet to visit a country where it doesn’t work for the ~10 years I have been with them.
Currently in Tokyo from UK, paid for an Airalo esim before I arrived, and I was pretty impressed with how cheap and easy it’s been- and that’s with 20gbs data, which I’ve barely used.
My service provider O2 would have charged me £7 a day with their O2 travel bolt-on, but would have still been my usual contract of unlimited calls, texts and data, just that the data would have been throttled a fair bit. This is a lot more reasonable than it used to be, but still would have amounted in a large bill compared to the one off $18 esim.
Used Airalo in the EU last year, only complaint was it took a few hours for the data to work reliably, but it was 100% after that. I’ve recommended it to everyone I know traveling.
I’ve used it in India last month. Same experience, definitely will use it again on other trips.
I have never used an eSIM, but I’d like to know about them. Can anyone explain what are some reasons to use it?
Is this just a switch to eSIM from regular SIM? Travel sim cards have been a thing for at least two decades.
Heard Holafly 😉👍 in App Store is a money saver when traveling. You just have to make sure your phone is unlocked.
Basically just physical sim for home and eSIM for traveling as most phone today are dual sim (ie… sim and eSIM) built in
eSIMdb is good place to find even more options :)
I just have a carrier that gives me free international data and calling, regardless of the level of plan.
Since way back in the 90s, everytime I stayed somewhere for longer than a week (or I really really needed mobile data) I would simply buy a local pay-as-you-go SIM for it.
This has been made even simpler to do with the advent of dual SIM phones were you can have a SIM for calls with your personal phone number and a different SIM for data.
Further, here in the EU ever since they passed some legislation some years ago, mobile operators can’t charge extra for roaming within the EU so none of that is even needed anymore if you’re just travelling withing the EU.
What exactly is the great advantage of eSIMs if you have a dual SIM phone?!
In some countries it’s not easy like walking in to a store and getting a prepaid card. You need to have an ID and a local address, probably to prevent bad events which use sims cards. A travel sim could be easier but more expensive.
eSIM is much easier and can be activated using an app.
They are slowly phasing our sim card slots, my phone only has one sim card slot + eSIM. Without the eSIM, I’d be force to change or buy a new phone.
That’s like saying that the advantage of DRM in media files is that consumers are forced to use it.
The only advantage for consumers I see for eSIMs is that they can be bought online and digitally delivered, so mild convenience, which is nice, but not quite as amazing or filling a great necessity as the OP tries to make it sound like.
Beyond that, well it creates new business models and is probably cheaper for mobile phone makers, which are advantages for others, but not for consumers since the barriers to entry in the mobile arena that make it prone to cartels aren’t in the provision of SIMs, they’re in things like radio spectrum licensing so eSIMs aren’t going to cause a price revolution in that market.
The problem I had with products like Airalo is that if you are traveling and need to actually call a hotel, excursion, or any company in the country you are visiting you cannot do that with just a data eSIM like Airalo.
Sure you could use WiFi calling maybe but in my experience when I really needed to call someone I had to switch back to my original carrier and incur the $10/day fee.
It’s maddening that my telco will negotiate a roaming rate on my behalf, and it’s 100x worse than what a random dude in a supermarket can sell me.