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Yep it does, I tried it when I was using dual sim in the USA. The cell coverage showed high under battery usage.
Im interested to know why you cant do this ?
Set data roaming to ‘off’ on the line you don’t want to use and then set your other line for mobile data and don’t allow data switching. I do this all the time depending on what sim I want to use for which purpose.
You can’t , to force a line to use cellular data from the other line one has switch the said line to a network / carrier that it can’t attach to.
One can't turn off *voice* roaming. In short, the UI doesn't expose a way to force a configured cellular line not to use any cellular radio and depend solely on another line's data and/or wifi for service.
The goal is to avoid the international roaming charges, as long as I'm willing to use some other data service for wifi calling (or "wifi" over another line's data service).
So if i understand correctly you don’t want to use voice or data on one of the two lines (sims) when roaming? If thats the case just turn the line ‘off’ (uncheck ‘turn on this line’ )……. Or just divert the calls from that line to voicemail.
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No, my intent is to leave the line active only on the equivalent of Wifi calling, using either cellular data on the other line, or true wifi. Then I can receive calls/texts on the line but not pay the usurious international roaming fees...instead I pay the reasonable local SIM data plan rates.
Now I understand but what you are asking for is not technically possible.
WhatsApp calling is your nearest solution (although I fully understand that in the US adoption of WhatsApp is limited)
I tried this well, but in roaming, normally you can use each provider. You have to find a provider with not roaming connection to your home provider and force the phone to use this line. This is the problem. It will work well here in my home country, because my eSIM will not use any other providers.
If you have postpaid service, you can achieve this by having your provider block international roaming. With AT&T, you call the international department to request this. Then when you travel outside of the US, your phone won't be able to connect to any non-AT&T tower, but Wi-Fi calling and "Wi-Fi" calling using Cellular Data from your foreign data plan will still work. However, one issue with blocking roaming is that you won't be able to roam in countries that your plan might include, such as Canada and Mexico.
Since I go to Canada quite frequently, this solution was not very convenient for me, since I had to keep calling to enable roaming to go to Canada and then call to disable it again. I ended up switching to AT&T Prepaid, since international roaming is only offered in a small number of countries. Now when I travel, I just make sure I get an eSIM data plan or a plan from a local provider, and my AT&T line always shows "AT&T Wi-Fi" or "AT&T using Cellular Data".
I tried this and it actually works! The problem is that in my battery usage I will see a fairly high percentage of "No cell coverage", because it always tries to connect to a network it's not allowed to. So yes, it does achieve the goal in a hacky way, but I'm not sure how much battery it uses in the end.
My company will not reimburse international roaming charges. And they need to send me texts for two-factor authentication--to my US number.I have to say I don’t understand why some of you guys make roaming potentially so complicated.
So many ways to stay in contact and be contactable without spending a cent. Even in countries where some communications tech is restricted.
What I did last time was get a local SIM (which they will pay for) and put it into an old phone I keep as a spare, and use that as a hotspot, then use airplane mode on my regular phone. This worked OK but boy it's clunky having two phones in my pocket.
If you need to receive Text (SMS) then putting into flight mode doesn’t help. Why not turn off data roaming instead thereby you can receive your SMS, then have a local esim for your data ? No need to carry 2 phones.
The US carriers will charge you $10 per day plus taxes on any day you receive a single SMS even with data roaming turned off. It might be possible to ask them to switch you to a legacy plan that charges you per SMS, but if someone calls you, you might be charged $3 even if you don’t answer and the call goes to voicemail.
I also used to carry 2 phones and keep my AT&T line on airplane mode (SMS and calls still work using Wi-Fi calling), but I don’t have to do that anymore using the method I described above. Just have to have AT&T block roaming completely.
Might be worth you checking because as far as I know AT&T don’t charge for incoming SMS and they don’t charge for unanswered incoming calls. Incoming SMS are considered domestic. In my experience this is quite normal for most carriers not just US.
You're right... I forgot that incoming SMS is free. It's been so long since I've had to worry about it, since I don't have postpaid anymore. But I do remember that the $10 TravelPass was activated for unknown reasons sometimes without any explanation... phantom data usage despite data roaming being turned off, or maybe hitting the decline button when an incoming call comes in vs. allowing it to go to voicemail automatically.
I think the other issue is checking to see if you are on Wi-Fi calling, making an outgoing call, and then finding out that by the time you made the call, you were actually on a cell tower instead.
I thought this was referred to as “Wi-Fi over cellular” and was possible? I have not done this myself.
Yes, that's what it's called. The hard part is convincing the wireless line to ignore roaming carriers and restrict itself to using the other line's data service. iPhone settings don't have a separate per-line roaming configuration. :-(
Correct. That's why you have to ask your carrier to block roaming on your plan or go with prepaid service, which usually doesn't even allow roaming.
I thought I would post in here about my recent education regarding eSims and Vodafone here in the UK.
I recently had my iPhone 14 pro Max replaced by Apple, and it was using an eSIM.
The chap didn’t ask me about my Sim card or even offer to remove it for me when he said he would be replacing it.
The problem arose when the new phone came out and the Genius asked me for my Sim card.
I then explained to him that I was on an eSIM, and I could tell from his body language at that moment that there was a problem.
The QR codes that I had already received from my original eSim, no longer worked, so I went home, jumped on my Wi-Fi and tweeted Vodafone.
They said I would have to contact customer service and gave me the phone number.
After doing the dance with more QR codes, I was transferred to someone else who informed me that I would now have to go into a Vodafone store, pick up a physical Sim, get my number activated on that and then get that converted into an eSIM.
It beggars belief that Vodafone’s process involves getting a physical SIM to get an eSim, when North Americans iPhones don’t even use SIM cards and clearly can get eSims activated should they change their phone for whatever reason (which is just how it should be with an electronic SIM.
So I guess this is more of a heads up than anything else.
If the initial chap that took my phone had said “It’s going to be about 90 minutes to swap your phone chassis, so as you’re on an eSim, pop downstairs to the Vodafone shop, get a new SIM card and then ask them to convert to an eSim for you”, then none of this **** would have happened.
But he didn’t, and I ended up stressed and flabbergasted at such a backward process that Vodafone have for such a modern feature.
I recently had my iPhone 14 pro Max replaced by Apple, and it was using an eSIM.
The chap didn’t ask me about my Sim card or even offer to remove it for me when he said he would be replacing it.
The problem arose when the new phone came out and the Genius asked me for my Sim card.
I then explained to him that I was on an eSIM, and I could tell from his body language at that moment that there was a problem.
The QR codes that I had already received from my original eSim, no longer worked, so I went home, jumped on my Wi-Fi and tweeted Vodafone.
They said I would have to contact customer service and gave me the phone number.
After doing the dance with more QR codes, I was transferred to someone else who informed me that I would now have to go into a Vodafone store, pick up a physical Sim, get my number activated on that and then get that converted into an eSIM.
It beggars belief that Vodafone’s process involves getting a physical SIM to get an eSim, when North Americans iPhones don’t even use SIM cards and clearly can get eSims activated should they change their phone for whatever reason (which is just how it should be with an electronic SIM.
So I guess this is more of a heads up than anything else.
If the initial chap that took my phone had said “It’s going to be about 90 minutes to swap your phone chassis, so as you’re on an eSim, pop downstairs to the Vodafone shop, get a new SIM card and then ask them to convert to an eSim for you”, then none of this **** would have happened.
But he didn’t, and I ended up stressed and flabbergasted at such a backward process that Vodafone have for such a modern feature.
I wish Apple had never gone to eSIM it is just a nightmare for some very easy processes.