eSims, what is your experience.

[flyingsal]

Anyone tried amaysim adding on international roaming ? I am not an existing customer but would purchase for a couple of months and add the international roaming onto it.
I am a tad stressed about trying to set it up when I land in USA and would like it all working before I leave

I am interested in amaysim too and would love if anyone can share experiences.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

I would say, any esim companies that let you set up in Aust is the best.
Ie you can use home wifi to set up.
I did for my first ever esim in Dec, not amaysim tho.
When they email you the info, you might need to use phone to take a pix of the QR code.
That will set up in sim manager, but there can be more steps on it too.
Eg, buying extra gb.
This will add credit to your account, but you might need to put value into the data pack side.
On 2nd trip, I bought $10, $20 and then $20 worth of credit.
Put in 12 digit codes, nope, still nothing, no service.
All up, so bought NZ$50 worth of 2deg credit and kept still get a question mark on phone screen.
Lost 0.75 of a day wondering what to do.
Used hotel wifi to then go into 2deg account, and find I have to specifically "use" credit to buy the data from credit available.
After that, I got the data I needed!
The question mark then showed 2deg.
I would 1gb for 2 or 3 days if visit.
Ie if staying 2 weeks, I would get 5 gb at the least.

 

[drron]

I’m on my 4th Airolo esim in Japan and happy with it. Was going to top it up for Thailand but their Thai eSIMs seem much better value so will probably get a new one.

 

[SYD]

I’m on my 4th Airolo esim in Japan and happy with it. Was going to top it up for Thailand but their Thai eSIMs seem much better value so will probably get a new one.

Yes, their Thai local plan is very good (including calls and txt) as posted earlier.

Is it a seperate eSIM or just a plan on an existing eSIM?

Flexiroam moved away from a single sim to one per plan but that was a right royal PITA. They’ve seen the light and reverted back to a single eSIM system which knows to use a country, regional or global plan in that order depending on where you are.

 

[drron]

i think just a plan on a separate eSIM. I have always just bought a new one. But I am a tech dinosaur. Fortunately the Airolo is easy to install and use.

 

[SYD]

i think just a plan on a separate eSIM. I have always just bought a new one. But I am a tech dinosaur. Fortunately the Airolo is easy to install and use.

My first and last time with Airalo wasn’t good but I suspect you can just add country, regional and global plans to an existing eSIM via the app - but I might be wrong.

 

[ShelleyB]

Just to update can confirm Ubigi was surprisingly easy to use

My own experience with Ubigi has been good too. I have now used them in Japan, Indonesia, Germany, UAE and Sweden. Very easy to use, and although pricing is variable have never had connectivity issues. Found Japan and Sweden (where we are currently) to be excellent value. You just use the one esim per phone and load different packages as required, with most countries having multiple packages to choose from.

 

[djh]

We've used Felix roaming on a couple of European trips with great success.

Sign up for their plan and pay for one month, buy their roaming pack ($20 AUD for 4gb and 100 minutes talk and text), pause your plan and that's it. While you have an active roaming plan you can stay paused. My plan has been paused since October 2022.

My husband and I used it in Spain and France in 2022, New Zealand, France, UK and Ireland in 2023.

Our travelling companions also used it last month in the UK, and none of us had a problem.

If you refer people you get Felix dollars which we then use to buy more roaming packs. It works out extremely cost-effective.

 

[sudoer]

Mrs sudoer is using Airalo while in Japan instead of her usual $5/day Vodafone roaming.

US$7.25 for 30 days/10GB (promo code DEC15) was just too good to pass up.

50% off 30-Day 10GB Japan eSim, US$9 (~A$13.70) @ Airalo

Deal: 50% off 30-Day 10GB Japan eSim, US$9 (~A$13.70) @ Airalo, Store: Airalo, Category: Mobile

www.ozbargain.com.au

So far it has been great - just as good as my Telstra roaming.

 

[elanshin]

Had an esim in Singapore, quite painless to setup at Changi (just outside jewel). Took maybe 5mins to scan QR code and dl the sim.

Incidentally i then found my normal boost sim here decided that i had wifi calling and rcs available so i effectively had roaming without actually roaming.

 

[mrsterryn]

Ok a very dumb question I have no doubt. My six month of E Sim will expire prior to my next trip . Does the E Sim need to be virtually uninstalled? Can it stay as is with a new six/twelve month deal ? Next time I would do twelve months for ease

 

[coolstepslg]

orange flex for EU about 36 cents with promo code FLEX Orange Flex European 5G SIM Plan, 11.14GB Roaming Data, 1 Month for PLNzł1 (~A$0.32) (Renews at PLNzł80 / A$26 Monthly), App R

Additional SIM or eSIM	PLN 0

and Tesco for UK and EU ?

 

[Cynicor]

Ok a very dumb question I have no doubt. My six month of E Sim will expire prior to my next trip . Does the E Sim need to be virtually uninstalled? Can it stay as is with a new six/twelve month deal ? Next time I would do twelve months for ease

Depends on the exact esim, not jsut the company selling it. But generally the answer is you remove it. They tend to remove themselves a little after expiry anyway.

 

[SYD]

Ok a very dumb question I have no doubt. My six month of E Sim will expire prior to my next trip . Does the E Sim need to be virtually uninstalled? Can it stay as is with a new six/twelve month deal ? Next time I would do twelve months for ease

From memory, you’re on Flexiroam? If they issued or reissued you recently a new eSIM, you can leave it installed and add future plans via the app as required.

But if you happen to upgrade your phone between now and then, uninstall the eSIM on the old phone first. That should allow you to reinstall it on the new phone using the details in the email you would have received from Flexiroam.

 

[SYD]

Depends on the exact esim, not jsut the company selling it. But generally the answer is you remove it.

If it’s a one off, then yes but if it’s an eSIM you’re likely to reuse, I’d leave installed to avoid disappointment later on (eg not being able to reinstall). Most new phones allow you to have multiple eSIMs installed in parallel.

 

[AviatorPJ]

I had easy setup and service with Gigago for my 7week stay in Thailand. First one for 30 days, then another for the next weeks. However, there was an initial major issue with my Pixel 7 Pro (new) phone in Thailand. Google Pixel phones were/are not distributed/sold in Thailand...for some reason. I suspect, possibly due to China/USA trade tensions, etc., etc. and trading influences... After an initial, two weeks of non connectivity to the mobile network and data (connection to and through most WiFi networks worked well), connection to the mobile network smoothed out unexpectedly. Thinking to use Gigago again during my coming visit to the Lao PDR in Feb 2024 and in Thailand

 

[DeKa]

Had an esim in Singapore, quite painless to setup at Changi (just outside jewel). Took maybe 5mins to scan QR code and dl the sim.

Incidentally i then found my normal boost sim here decided that i had wifi calling and rcs available so i effectively had roaming without actually roaming.

Yes Telstra Prepaid and Boost (effectively Telstra Prepaid) Wifi Calling works over a second eSIM as long as that second eSIM is not “roaming”.

I did a test recently using Amaysim as my eSIM and my Telstra prepaid wouldn’t connect to wifi calling. In Singapore, I purchased the Singtel tourist eSIM and then my Telstra prepaid did connect to wifi calling.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Ok a very dumb question I have no doubt. My six month of E Sim will expire prior to my next trip . Does the E Sim need to be virtually uninstalled? Can it stay as is with a new six/twelve month deal ? Next time I would do twelve months for ease

Go into the website of the company, and see if you can add credit to it from Aust.
This "might" extend the life of the esim.
Then after adding credit, say $10 Aud, buy the data pack from it.
$10 is not too expensive, and you would only loose that.
But who knows, that $10 might extend the life of the esim.
If nothing works, then the other way is just to buy a new esim, with a new number, and start buying/adding credit to the new number, and buying a data and talk pack from the new esim.
Usually, when you buy an esim, the phone number attached to that sim, will show up in sim 1 manage my sim too.
Most companies will send the esim info in an email, and you just need to use the camera on your phone to scan the QR code in the email, and that's it.

 

[SYD]

Go into the website of the company, and see if you can add credit to it from Aust.
This "might" extend the life of the esim.
Then after adding credit, say $10 Aud, buy the data pack from it.
$10 is not too expensive, and you would only loose that.
But who knows, that $10 might extend the life of the esim.
If nothing works, then the other way is just to buy a new esim, with a new number, and start buying/adding credit to the new number, and buying a data and talk pack from the new esim.
Usually, when you buy an esim, the phone number attached to that sim, will show up in sim 1 manage my sim too.
Most companies will send the esim info in an email, and you just need to use the camera on your phone to scan the QR code in the email, and that's it.

Not really applicable to the data only esims that don't come with a number. They’re either open ended or expire on completion of the plan. So you either just sit on the esim or buy a new one. Not real difference.

Plans that do come with a number and calls/txt probably do need a top up every 6 to 12 mths or so to keep them alive.

 

[encryptededdy]

I'm generally a fan of Ubigi over marketplaces like Airalo for four reasons

1. You only need one eSIM installed on your phone, and this can be used for all their plans. You can load any plan at any time onto the eSIM, and you don't have to install a new eSIM for every plan.

2. You get a local IP address for the country. Technically this means local websites may load ever so slightly faster, but also on occasion some websites block foreign IPs. For instance, I had issues with an Airalo SIM trying to access a website in Japan since it was using a Singaporean IP address. It's also slightly lower latency for everything else as your traffic isn't being tunnelled to another country, although in practice this doesn't really matter.

3. The Ubigi SIM is never in "Roaming" mode (in my experience). This means features that allow WiFi calling over data actually work (e.g. see @DeKa 's issue above). This also means I don't have to change settings on my phone to allow data whilst roaming

4. The Ubigi SIM allows access to the Ubigi App, even if you've run out of data / have no plan activated. This means that even if I'm somewhere with no WiFi and didn't buy a plan (or a plan ran out unexpectedly), I can still always rely on the Ubigi SIM to allow me to connect to their captive portal/app to buy a new plan

Of course, the downside of all of this is that in general Ubigi is a bit more expensive than their competitors. I do find they're still a bit cheaper than Flexiroam though (who share most of these advantages AFAIK too).