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Other iPhone 14 with SIM card tray
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Agree the pSim is becoming less and less needed. I mentioned in other threads pre-covid I traveled extensively for work as in over 250,000 butt in seat miles a year by air. In all the countries I visited, I never once bought a local sim for several reasons:
- I've always chosen my USA carrier based on their international roaming capabilities. Google FI for a long time and or T-Mobile.
- With the advent of eSims, it has become stupid easy to get cheap data for trips abroad even if your carrier supports zero roaming. Heck iPhones' IMS functionality make this super awesome if your US carrier does wifi calling. You can make and receive wifi calls over the data from the data only eSim. Fantastic.
- Apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, Signal, Telegram etc mean that I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to make an actual voice cellular call while abroad in the last 6 or so years.
- Buying physical sims in many countries as become more and more of a pain in the ass. Many countries now require showing ID some even require having a local bank account to open one.
One word. “Speed” I’ve always found local sims , pound for pound offer greater connectivity speeds and a general overall value compared to roaming. Plus peace of mind.
Great point. Though to unpack speed:
- Throughput: Full Speed LTE roaming packages or eSims (like airalo) generally have very good throughput.
- Latency: Roaming packages route all traffic to their home network leading to increased latency. I recenly experienced this in Italy. When using an AT&T day pass (was testing AT&T at the time) the speeds I had were fantastic but latency was bad at over 300ms due to the APN being in the US. I activated an airalo eSim for italy which routed traffic through somewhere in Europe so I had much better latency... but still not as good as a local sim would have given me.
‘I went to the ATT store today and they said that even the latest iPhone 13 phone now have no SIM card trays, so it is already becoming a standard in the USA.
The good new is the ATT store said that I did not have to do anything before my 14 PM arrives even though my 13 PM has a physical SIM. The ATT store employee says when you do the “transfer data” think with your old phone and new phone sitting next to it it will move your service over to the 14PM eSIM automatically.
All true. It's just that for most people, the roaming experience is good enough. When I'm traveling I use Google maps to get around, and then WIFI for everything else. I've come to expect slower data because it's good enough to accomplish what I need when away from my hotel or AirBNB.
I think that those who want the best speeds and value will lose out in the short term, but now that Apple has moved, the market will start to offer eSIM solutions that are comparable to pSIM of those who still want a local number.
It may be a few extra bucks if you visit for no more than a couple of days, but most carriers in the US charge about $10 per day to use their service (via a roaming partner) overseas and at $10 per day, you will still be somewhat restricted.
I'm headed to South Korea next week where it would cost me about $50 for a month versus $300 with my current carrier. I will note though that the local carrier (KT) does support eSIM for an extra $5 which I wouldn't mind spending, but I would certainly mind spending an additional $250 to get the restricted service of my US carrier.
I was in India a couple of months back and one of their largest carriers (Jio) supports eSIM and offers dirt cheap service, like a 4 weeks for less than $8 with 3 GB of data every day, but you can't get an eSIM directly. You have to start with a physical SIM and request an eSIM conversion which takes 12-24 hours.
In the US, my current carrier (Xfinity) doesn't support eSIM as of today but I expect this will change within the next week because they have already announced that they will be supporting the iPhone 14 models.
So, eSIM availability varies quite a bit between different countries and carriers, and I do not believe everyone is ready yet. This is a bold move by Apple and I am certainly not happy about it especially when they are still offering the alternate for all other markets. In the long run, I think eSIM is the way to go, but again, everyone isn't ready just yet.
Unfortunately for some (myself included), GoogleFi and TMo appear to work better in international markets than they do domestically! 😆
Absolutely true depending on where you are. I had a great experience pairing Visible (verizon) with Airalo, as well as experimenting with AT&T.
Point is, international roaming has gotten orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper with the advent of eSims.
I really hate this. I travel often and always buy cheap SIM cards from where ever I’m traveling to. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do without it. It’s going to be years before the the international providers adapt to this.
Xfinity does support eSim now. I think this just happened a couple of days ago but the system is already up and running.
Actually, Xfintiy announced a couple days ago that they do as well as Spectrum Mobile. https://www.xfinity.com/hub/mobile/how-to-switch-with-esim
All US carrier who want to sell iPhones are going to have to support eSIM in their agreement w/ Apple if they want to sell their phone. Even if most MVNO are BYOD, this has been coming some 2018 and they all know it. Mint & US mobile also went live w/ eSIM earlier this year.
Traveling is a different story but if you have TMO or Verizon, it's an easy solution as they have free roaming as part of their service, depending on your plan and as long as it isn't long term travel. If it is, then you probably want to stay on the iPhone 13, which seems to be your preference anyway so looks ike you're not missing out on anything!
Exactly this. It'll happen eventually as the manufacturing of SIM cards is terrible for the environment. But if you wanna force it then you can't give people a choice. It's annoying AF to people who really need it right now though.
For people who travel overseas and pick up local SIM cards (as I do...er did) and just pop them in their phones, it's going to be a hard transition for a while or they just can't upgrade to the 14. But all those carriers in well traveled countries are going to lose a lot of money from tourists if they don't make it available. And since Capitalism always wins, they will provide it probably in the next year or so.
This is also why I moved to TMO for their roaming services. Free data and I can pay to upgrade to faster service. I actually stopped getting local SIMS since this was was SOOOOOO much easier and reasonable cost considering the convenience. Long term travel is a different story.
Yup. This is my same scenario, with exception of the UK, which I still do have a physical SIM for. I've had a Three PAYG sim for YEARS but other than the local #, I don't need it anymore. And come to think of it, I can't even remember the last time I needed a local #. All my friends & family call or text with iMessage/WhatsApp/Skype anyway. Keeping track of multiple numbers was such a PITA.
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As of yesterday there has been no success (based on my own experience and what I've seen others post) being able to switch existing lines to Xfinity eSIM. Tech support hints that eSIMs are only for new devices. So, perhaps not until the new devices are delivered to customers.
If you go into your account, you can switch a device on your number. Use eSim 2 and it will work. It accepted mine.
I don’t think apple will let you do that or any retailer I know of. You’d probably need a friend in Canada to buy it for you and ship it to you. Or you buy it but put their shipping address, and they forward the parcel to you. Keep in mind tax is 5-13% here
I think what’s definitely not an edge case is the very real scenario when your phone is damaged somehow to where your touchscreen is unresponsive/ off or battery fails. How are you, for example, going to access online banking with two factor authentication enabled? You would either need another eSIM enabled phone and contact your carrier or look for an old physical sim phone laying around and head to your carrier to get a new physical sim. This of course depends on if your 2FA is using SMS / e-mail / authenticator app. If it’s using SMS or an authenticator app, then this seems like quite the hassle.
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Airalo offers overprices travel sims, not actual local sims with standard prepaid plans. Not an option for frequent travellers at all. Only for leisure travellers who use tiny amounts of data.
Most countries in the world don’t offer prepaid esims at all - they only offer esims on postpaid plans. This is literally true for 95% of countries outside the US. So the list of carriers you see on apple’s website is useless as most of them won’t sell you a prepaid esim anyway. For example in the UK only three carriers even offer esims in the first place (out of many), and all of them EXCLUSIVELY on postpaid plans. i.e. you have to have a UK address, bank account and an established credit to be able to have a long term 12 or 24 month contract. Only then can you get an esim in the UK.
I would tend to disagree about Airalo ……. in my experience they are not overpriced, yes they are intended for travel, that’s the concept that if you are frequently travelling you have a single source to purchase an esim quickly and efficiently to overcome the challenges that you highlight. I’m a frequent global traveller and they are fine for me along with many friends or colleagues. Not all frequent business travellers need tons of data !
Im not sure what you mean when you talk about travel sims and local sims ? in my experience the esims I have purchased from Airalo have been on local networks.
Of course the cost will be higher than if you purchased on the ground but to some degree you have shot your argument in the foot stating that in the UK you can’t get an esim on prepay ……. With Airalo you can get a prepay esim instantly on the O2 network … something you can’t buy locally from O2 without the hurdles you describe. 10gb for $22.50 might seem expensive but How much can you buy it for ? (Assuming you are not a UK resident, bank account etc etc). Another example if I travel to Thailand I get 15 days unlimited data on a local network for $19.
I would also question where you get your stats from to say that 95% of countries don’t offer esims on prepay ?
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Someone else responded re: Airalo
As for pre-paid in the UK, esim.net is prepaid eSIM that runs on O2. So there you go.
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I use to swap a Belize sim card in my iphone 13, but now since AT&T included Belize in free roaming I don't have to worry about it.
I think this is also missing from the conversation. This is the next perk battle for the US carriers. T-Mobile already has free roaming, slow but decent in a pinch and I usually just pay to make it faster. Costs a little more but beats having to run around to get a sim or paying a premium to buy it at the airport. Now they have 5gb included for Magenta customers.
Verizon has travel passes you can save & stack. It’s good for casual travel. Otherwise it’s $10/day. I think this will come down.
These things are all fine for most people. The outliers are people who use 100gb when traveling or out of the country for half the year. Their anger is what scares most regular users into thinking this isn’t going to work. I travel a lot but not half the year. A hotspot might be the best course for them now where you can pop a local SIM card into it.
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