[einsteinx2]

I’m in the same boat. When I was just recently back in the US, I looked for the cheapest prepaid cell phone plan that could activate a line with an eSIM from their app for instant sign up and supported WiFi for calls and texts. My reason was to have a “real” US number for SMS verifications that block VOIP services like Google Voice which causes me headaches.

I ended up signing up for a $10/mo unlimited calls and texts plan from US Mobile with 2 gigs of data. If you use their low cost plan you can get the same for a little cheaper or you can cut down the number of calls, texts, and data per month and get it down as low as around $5/mo I think. For me the $10 was worth it and means I’ll always have data when traveling back to the US as well without buying a temporary data eSIM like I usually do so that cancels out some of the cost for me.

So far it’s worked fine for me since I got back home outside the US, though I don’t use it much and usually keep the eSIM disabled so it doesn’t burn battery looking for a network it won’t find (plan doesn’t have roaming so it’ll always search). Also I don’t get the ability to get messages on my computer like with Google Voice, so I ended up keeping my GV line instead of porting it just in case I didn’t end up liking the idea.

I’ll probably keep using my GV number as my main US number for now until I see if I want to stay with the mobile plan, but $120/yr seems reasonable to have a non-VOIP US number available to me and data when I travel home once or twice a year. There are other prepaid plans you can use as well, but it seemed like they all bottomed out around the $10/mo mark.

I think you need to physically be in the US when you buy the service on any of these prepaid carriers to connect to the network once and activate the eSIM, but after that you can use it on only wifi or even cell data from your main line anywhere.