Some new phones come with esim technology. A esim is a sort of built in sim card that you can activate using an app. The upside of using a esim is that you can easily switch carriers and plans on the fly. So if you are about to cross into Turkey from Greece, you can activate a plan that is valid for Turkey, you don't need to go and buy a physical sim card.

Has anyone used esims? Any downsides beside that the prices can be higher depending on the country? Or is it all upside? Thoughts?

I guess that's the way things are going but it's in the future for me. If it works as seamlessly as you (and the marketing people) suggest then it'll make life a little easier but I think I'm a couple of phone upgrades away at the moment.

Local sims seem to be very easily obtained in most countries - my local supermarket here (UK) has probably 20 different offerings from about £5 upwards, and at passport control in Dubai a few months ago my passport was handed back with a free local sim tucked into it. Strangely the only place I've not been able to get a local payg sim is the US.

Used them. I have a physical SIM in my iPhone that is my domestic number, and the card also has a secure element that lets me do digital ID and document signing with it. I also have an eSIM function in the phone, and it can have multiple eSIMs registered at the same time. Only two SIMs (in any combination of physical and eSIM) can actually be active simultaneously.

Used an app during travels that created/activated an eSIM for whatever non-EU country I was going into, complete with data. Fairly reasonable cost, definitely much less than roaming. Maybe buying a local physical tourist SIM would be cheaper, but not by a factor that would make a big difference (basically I could get a month's worth of data for ten euros through the app). Very happy with it as a service, definitely will use it again. The only real downside is that I needed to reboot my phone to properly activate the installed eSIM, and that was not clear in the app's instructions.

Downside is compatibility - if all your operator offers is eSIMs, you'd better have a newish and compatible phone. Also it doesn't quite have the same security level for digital ID as a physical SIM with an on-chip security element.

*In theory* eSIMs can be reissued by your operator entirely online, instead of you going to one of their locations. This can be either a security issue - SIM cloning becomes simpler? - or a life-saver, like when I lost my phone in New Zealand, complete with my Estonian SIM and phone number that all my multi-factor authentication was tied to.

Downside is that in a lot of less developed countries esims are not available from the phone companies. We've seen this with a lot of Africa travellers in the facebook groups.

I use an esim for my home number and reserve the physical sim for local ones when travelling

Fair enough - although I just checked Airalo and they even offer a 26-country all-Africa eSIM.

Some older Android phones have dual SIM slots where you can keep your existing SIM and add a second one. What’s more usual nowadays is for phones to be able to simulate having a dual SIM by having an electronic version (eSIM is how cellular support is provided on the Apple Watch). There should be no price difference between the two methods of connectivity delivery.

All US models of the iPhone 14 use only eSIMS, there's no physical SIM slot. There are predictions that the iPhone 15 due in Sep/Oct 2023 might follow the same trend in Europe, at least in France and UK. At the moment many service providers in less developed countries don't offer eSIMs, or only offer the service if you visit their shops. Morocco is an example of this.

iPhones that support eSIM include ALL models from the SE 2020, XR and XS onwards (so also iPhone 11, 12, 13, 14). You can store eight or more eSIMs on an iPhone, ready to use, and you can have two eSIMs active on supported iPhone models at the same time—say one for home, the other for the place you are visiting.

You can swap which of your stored eSIMs are active simply by changing your selections in Settings. This might be helpful if you travel regularly to the same places.I currently use an iPhone 11 Pro Max and my UK service is via an EE eSIM, leaving my physical slot free for my Lobster nano SIM in Spain or Maroc Telecom in Morocco.

When you have multiple SIMs enabled (whether SIM or eSIM), you normally choose which one is used for mobile data and outgoing telephone calls, however you can have both services activated at once for incoming and outgoing telephone calls. You can also configure mobile data switching so you use whichever has the better coverage but you probably don’t want this as you would incur additional charges from your home service.

If you have both SIMs active, when you come to make a normal telephone call, the SIM you are about to use is shown at the top of the screen and you can change that if you wish.

More from Apple.

Airalo is one of the vendors mentioned in the article above. As far as Morocco is concerned, Airalo's eSIM works on Maroc Telecom's network, however be aware there's no voice calls and the data allowance is just 1GB before needing to be topped up, so it's an expensive option compared to a local Maroc Telecom/Inwi/Orange solution,

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Probably to make sure they could monitor your comms

Tthey are also a lot more expensive. Airalo charge 10x as much for data in Morocco as Maroc Telecom

I am going to one of Europe´s poorest countries and will buy a local sim card, as I did 5 years ago. Contribute to the local economy, meet real people in real life and maybe have a little chat. Pay for it with real money, you know those round metal things and colorfull papers they used to call coins and bills.
Old fashioned? Me? No way.

I was initially excited about eSims. I live in the US and have been traveling to Europe for work and getting eSims for those trips. I now think they suck (or at least are not mature enough). I've had a lot of problems, and that is in Europe.

Cons:
- More expensive
- Many countries through Airalo and similar are data only, but I want/need a phone number to...you know, call people. Especially when several places/agencies have asked me for a phone number. Like when the airline lost my luggage, they wanted a phone number to call me, but the eSim was data only
- I have had my eSim just quit working all together, even though when I got on wifi it said I had data left. When you run out of data on a normal pre-paid sim typically the code to top up will still work, so you can check/add data or credit. On an eSim it just stops working, even if it shows you have bars.

I plan to buy an iphone 14 on my next trip to Europe specifically so I can get one with a physical sim slot. We travel in Southern Africa fairly often and Namibia, one of our favorite places, currently doesn't have eSims. I'm sure they will soon, but it is a headache I don't want to deal with.

I had one in Morocco for a couple of providers and their were impressively bad. Dropped reception and data constantly. On an iPhone 13. Used Airlo for one, MarocTelecom for the other. Neither worked well.

Beware of the ones which switch between different networks; from what I was told, the provider basically hasn’t bought exclusive rights to capacity, which is why the service quality is patchy.

Ed


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Where Next Barney? Buenos Aires to Lima 2015 | London to Sydney 2015/6 | Armenia, Georgia & the FYR 2022 | Algerian Sahara 2023.

I'm interested in your comment. My understanding as far as reception and performance is concerned, is that an eSIM would be identical to a physical SIM.

Or is that wrong?

(I run an eSIM permanently in the UK on EE using an iPhone 12 Pro Max)

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Sounds sensible to keep a physical SIM given the problems you've had, but I do wonder if they are primarily down to the service provider, rather than the fact the SIM control data is stored within the phone rather than on a card?

I've been using an eSIM as my primary line for over two years, but then I'm on a contract rather than PAYG.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

That's exactly what I do.

You can be sure of always being able to get a physical SIM card in a foreign country, but you can't be sure of getting an eSIM. On top of that, the process for "installing" and activating an eSIM can be tricky - I had a heck of a time getting the eSIM for my home (Canadian) carrier activated when I first obtained a phone with dual eSIM & physical SIM capability.

Best to follow the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) philosophy when travelling.

Michael

Hi Tim:

Your understanding is correct. I think what the person who wrote that meant was that the cellular service coverage offered by the company that provided the eSIM was not as comprehensive as they would have liked it to be - in other words, cell coverage offered by a different provider in the same country who used physical SIMs rather than eSIMs would have been more widespread.

Michael