[tamirzb]

People here seem to quickly react by recommending their favorite travel eSIM provider. I'd propose what I find to be a bit more useful, a website that compares a bunch of different travel eSIM providers: https://esimdb.com

No affiliation from my side. I find it nice to know I always have many options.

[kotaKat]

I'll throw this in as well -- https://esim.me/

It's not an "eSIM" per se, but it's a physical SIM card that has the eSIM module onboard. This lets your physical devices use eSIM providers.

One weird thing they do though is a strange licensing model where you can buy the physical card locked to one specific phone, one specific brand of phones, or any phone, plus a set number of eSIM slots. The Omni/15 is the "best" of them all.

You DO need an Android device to be able to set the active carrier; however, once the active eSIM slot is set you can pull the SIM and put it in something else and use that selected carrier.

[YoumuChan]

It is just an standard eUICC card with an issuer certificate, which means you need issuer's app to access low-level eUICC functions on a rootless Android. This is how esim.me enforces the subscription.

This also means, you can use any LPA implementation to manage and install profiles on your own!

Some examples:

https://github.com/Truphone/LPAdesktop Needs a smart card reader and a pc to work

https://github.com/estkme-group/lpac Could either use a smart card reader or an actual modem with AT-support

https://gitea.angry.im/PeterCxy/OpenEUICC Needs a root on Android

Furthermore, I believe you could manage it via Windows settings if your window laptop has a WWAN card.

[joecool1029]

> https://gitea.angry.im/PeterCxy/OpenEUICC Needs a root on Android

It usually needs to be priv-app installed, which means you have to build it in with the rom or add it with a Magisk module (don't use the one on github though it's horribly out of date, if you must... make sure your device is in light theme mode or you won't see the QR code and confirm buttons).

[kotaKat]

What eUICC physical cards are people grabbing for this?

[joecool1029]

I can confirm esim.me works for it, it's just expensive for one of them. This service does not require an IMEI pairing to the EID because at least in the US it's using T-Mobile (at&t has a device whitelist and verizon requires a valid IMEI/EID in their database).

[schrmh]

That's interesting cause on a a bigger german website we are trying to figure out how to get that firsty thing working with removable eUICCs since Feb the 16th. The only person that reported there that eSIM.me is working for them used a smartphone with a built-in eUICC for "looking at the app and receiving activation code" and after that put in the eSIM.me into a Galaxy S10.

Everybody else that wrote something about working or not working — no matter if they use products from eSIM.me, 5ber or sysmocom — wrote that it isn't working for them. Even when installing the profile with the static activation code from within the APK — that can be found when using apktool on the APK and a bit of grep — I wasn't able to get a data connection with the profile deployed to the sysmoEUICC1-C2G. Btw. firsty seems to use Vodafone here.

However, firsty support answered today that they "are looking into support for these use cases, so stay tuned!"

[tcmaps]

myDealz? :) You can spoof the app to "detect" a compatible device on a rooted phone by hooking bv.b class and returning true in frida or XPosed

[riedel]

Unfortunately it does not work with firsty, but it works like a charm with arbitrary esims while travelling. I last used it in Japan but also sometimes across Europe if I need extra data. I am super happy. Also with their support!

[kefyras]

What's up with KYC "in accordance with German and European regulations" to use it?

A number of EU member states don't require any id/registration for prepaid (e)SIMs. How is that any of their concern if you're buying a profile from a 3rd party?

[4ad]

Most eSIM providers are just resellers, what I care about a travel eSIM is:

1. is it a reseller, if yes, from whom?

2. does it have local breakout in the target country?

3. what network does it use in the target country?

4. is it data-only?

5. does it allow tethering?

6. can I pay with Apple Pay?

7. can I use it without an account?

Very, very few eSIM services fulfil the second criteria above, and no comparison website I know off lists all the others.

Without LBO, an eSIM is worthless to me. Thus far, I have only found Truphone and bne to have LBO (at least where I travel to). I would love to hear about more options. No LBO no buy!

[thworp]

Do you have some references for the local breakout thing (preferrably technical docs/spec)? Seems like it would not be in Telcos interest to saturate their interconnects needlessly.

[AlexAndScripts]

What is local breakout?

[4ad]

It means routing data to the Internet directly through the network the user is using rather than going to the operator's network.

When normal roaming, even though you use some local network, all the trafic gets tunnelled out from the local network to your own network provider, to the internet, and then back. So if you're from, say, France, and you visit Australia, all your traffic gets tunned back and forth to France. This is bad. Most eSIM providers work like this, usually tunneling through Israel or Poland.

With LBO you get direct Internet access just like you would with a local SIM.

Basically you need LBO to avoid a VPN connection to some random far away country.

[AlexAndScripts]

Thanks for the explanation, that's really useful. I'll keep it in mind when travelling.

I'm curious, why Israel and Poland? Are a lot of eSIM providers from there?

[dataflow]

How do you tell if an eSIM has LBO? Also, is this specific to eSIM somehow? Shouldn't physical SIM behave the same?

[4ad]

Physical SIMs behave the same, but most people use SIM cards from specific countries rather than global SIMs, which are a niche business product not oriented towards consumers.

When you use a local SIM card you (almost?) never get LBO. Note that sometimes this is a feature, e.g. you can sometimes get internet in China this way.

The point, however, of eSIMs is to be "better" than your home SIM.

eSIMs usually offer a better price than your home SIM (while travelling), but they rarely offer better performance. In fact they often offer worse performance, because they often have a single POP in some weird country that is further way than your home country.

Global SIM providers, both physical SIM and eSIM have more POPs, often in the country you are travelling, or at least closer to it than your home country. Until recently these providers were out of reach of most people, since they did not sell directly to consumers, but now some of them offer eSIM, albeit at a higher price than the competition.

To answer your question though, unless the eSIM provider tells you under which conditions it has LBO, you can't know except experimentally, but that test has to be done from a specific location. They might have LBO only from some countries or from some network. For example, now I am in Austria and Truphone seems to be routing through Germany, which technically is not local, but it's still far closer than Israel or New Zealand (!!) that some cheap eSIM providers go through. bne seems to route directly through Austria though, beating Truphone in latency and even beating my local SIM in latency.

The good news is that many resellers cheaper than Truphone are actually using Truphone's backbone, but unfortunately they don't advertise than making it really hard to shop around without burning money for tests.

YMMV though.

[dataflow]

Fascinating, thanks! The NZ thing sounds wild.

[brnt]

First plan I check is no longer offered though. Second is more expensive. I guess these things tend to go out of date fast...

[ossguy]

Does it show eSIM providers that explicitly do not provide phone numbers? In particular, ones whose eSIM does not list any phone number that the OS can see (many "data-only" plans still have a phone number the OS can see/use).

The closest I found on eSIMDB was a "Hide data only plans (no Voice / SMS)" option, but that's sort of the opposite. I'd like to see "Hide plans that have a phone number" for example.

Mainly I ask because Apple-using friends of mine have told me that it's impossible to remove (e)SIM phone numbers from the iMessage database. There is apparently no setting to use to prevent Apple from making a (e)SIM phone number an option for iMessage, so it's important to have (e)SIMs that provide no phone number at all, to ensure that iMessage can't get confused about which identifiers the user actually wants available.