[officialchicken]

Yes, absolutely a deal breaker... but I carry two phones b/c I do not trust Verizon after being disconnected overseas. Their international plan requires you to re-connect to a US-based cell tower in order to "reactivate" the international plan if it has been disconnected. I am not aware of any service that allows me to buy an e-sim for any given random country airport and activate it before I reach the exit.

edit: forgot to add ... if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either.

[philsnow]

> connect to a US-based cell tower in order to "reactivate" the international plan if it has been disconnected

> if you change countries or have to make an additional unplanned hop, VZ does not work in that scenario either

Just so I understand you, Verizon has an international plan where you have to touch base back in the States every time you go to some other country, before it will work in the next country? I must have misunderstood what you were saying.

[officialchicken]

No misunderstanding... been affected twice with EU trips that included hops to MENA. And if you are somehow disconnected (due to an error on their end, which are quite frequent) it can not re-establish functionality without accessing a US-based cell tower. After the second or third time it happened, I just started carrying a second phone to put in a local SIM. I ended up saving a ton of money in data charges too.

[sockaddr]

It's even dumber than that! It used to "just work" when you landed in another country and tried to pull a single byte of data. But now you're required to call VZ and inform them of your trip beforehand. To make matters worse, not all of their reps know this and will tell you that isn't the case and leave you stranded with no coverage. I'm generally happy with VZ over the years but this is just pathetic.

A rep once explained this to me as "innovation". Cool.

[2457013579]

Current VZW customer here. Been overseas to Europe a few times (multiple countries each time) and SO went to Asia (3 countries) with absolutely zero issues. Just have to go on the app before you leave to pick an international plan (daily or monthly), select all the countries, and total trip start/end dates. Maybe you are on a business plan and can’t access the app? It’s pretty straightforward in there. Also pretty sure you can update the countries in the app if needed before you hop on the plane in the scenario of an unforeseen stop (or hop on free wifi when you land). eSim feels similar to a credit card, if you don’t tell the company you are leaving town you could run into issues, but as long at the company is notified it should be seamless.

[smileybarry]

A bunch of carriers around the world have either “up to X roaming days in a year” or “up to X roaming days at a time” for the included roaming plan. I guess it’s to reset that.

[sithadmin]

Airalo works great for the 'load an esim while in the airport' use case. US Mobile has a similar offering but I haven't tried it out yet.

[mrbombastic]

I used Airalo recently in Argentina and can't say I'd recommend it, it somehow broke my iMessage until I reset a bunch of settings and seemingly got throttled at random despite having a ton of data left. Which is a shame because topping up data that way is much easier than switching out a physical sim. I also don't know if it was an esim problem or an Airalo problem, maybe support will be better when it is only esims.