I perceive the problem differently. Google Fi has demonstrated that it's possible to arrange service agreements across providers that offer consistent, predictable, relatively low costs for people that travel frequently between countries. If there was another couple global-scale competitors to Fi I'd wager we'd see competition squash the prices down even more. But at the moment, when I step off a plane or drive across a national border it's an experience basically equivalent to driving across states here in the U.S. I've used it in 4 continents and about 20 countries now and it's pretty much instant.

The problem of course is that Fi is U.S. based which brings a few extra headaches with it for people who want the service but are based overseas, or for expats living abroad for a long period of time.

Note: I also have some Voip apps on my phone giving me a few different phone numbers to the same phone without the SIM/eSIM mess. But these days I'm finding I'm more or less just making voice calls over apps anyways meaning I'm using voice service less and less.

+1 for Google Fi

I use Google Fi and I've been to the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, and Switzerland. When I landed, I'd get a text message saying something like "Welcome to $COUNTRY! Your data is $DATA_RATE per gigabyte and voice calls are $VOICE_RATE per minute. It may take a couple minutes to get connected"

DATA_RATE has always been the standard Google Fi rate of $10/GB (with data free after a certain point, and free but throttled at another threshold), and the voice rate is typically 10 cents/minute.

For people that do a lot of travel and use a lot of data, you can even get an unlimited international data plan.

But yeah, I can go to nearly any first world country, and even some 3rd world countries, and not pay extra for my data. The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

-1 For Google Fi. I traveled to 2 countries on their list of "compatible" places where data should work, it didn't. Called support, no explanation. Bought a cheap local sim card instead, which always makes more sense to do. Now that Whatsapp and iMessage both let you "roam" on a different sim while keeping your phone number, there's no reason to try and roam with your original plan.

If you have a dual-SIM phone and your primary plan supports Wi-Fi calling, you don't even need to "roam" on a different SIM. You can use a local SIM card as your data plan and route your calls and texts over that network. There are a few iPhone apps I've used that allow you to download an eSIM in a couple minutes for five bucks.

Parent comment mentioned iMessage, that means iPhone. Are there any dual-SIM iPhones?

I think all of them since the XR/XS era, 2018 ish? My iPhone 13 mini does dual eSIM (I used both AT&T and T-Mobile when I was in a remote area and it worked great).

> The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

TMobile provides this same service for free for international travel (I actually wonder if this is where Google Fi gets the service for it from).

> The fact that Verizon/TMobile/Sprint/etc. can't get their shit together and make this happen for their customers feels like a scam.

Or maybe it is not worth it because the cost of doing so is not worth the possibly small number of people who would use it? A good number of people never even leave the country. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of people in the US leave the country five or fewer times in their lifetime.

ATT is $10 per day, up to $100 per month after which the rest of the month is no extra charge. It starts and stops automatically when you start and stop using international data/voice/SMS/MMS.

https://www.att.com/international/day-pass/

Which is beyond ridiculous.

Was a big fan of Google Fi, it really does work amazingly well when you travel a lot - I've been a digital nomad using it for about 5 years (back when it was Project Fi).

But I recently got a taste of that "US based" policy. I am technically based in the US (have a company here) but I have been out of the US since Covid started. Google Fi worked well for about 2.5 years but suddenly when I was in Greece recently, the data stopped working.

When I spoke to customer service, they first told me it's a known issue in the region and I just gotta wait. When I called back 2-3 days later, they informed me that it's my specific account which has been blocked because I've been outside the US for too long.

They billed me for my unlimited international data but essentially blocked me from using ANY data. They said the data will resume as soon as I'm back in the states (which I was in a few weeks anyway). Ridiculous.

This situation really sucks. I'm in the US right now but my Fi data won't work outside the US. Makes it useless pretty much.

Basically esims are more convenient, great. Why are they not optional? Why can't phones support both types of SIM?

A lot of phones do, eg most Samsungs since the S20 have physical and eSIM.

There's also an interesting product from https://esim.me/ that emulates the functionality of an esim on a physical sim card, and lets you switch between eSIMS via their app even on older phones like the galaxy S8.

Thank you, I didn't expect my original comment to get attention, I just wanted a healthy discussion and education on things I don't know.

It's so nice to not have to spend the first day of a trip wandering around looking for a SIM shop that's open and will sell to you with a foreign passport.

Last time I was abroad, I set up an eSIM while I was waiting at baggage claim, so I had service on my multihour train connection.

> It's so nice to not have to spend the first day of a trip wandering around looking for a SIM shop

I went to three different countries this summer and all of them had sim cards available on your way out of the airport. In Armenia, it was in the baggage claim.

This is sometimes true. Like in Tunisia where they give a free SIM in baggage claim. But I crossed a lot of land borders through west africa where it would be a day or two of traveling before I could find an official store that had a physical SIM.

Experiences differ.

Also all EU sim cards roam in the whole of the EU automatically.

I did not notice this in Ireland, but I may have missed it. It was this easy in London though.

A lot of asian countries have similar convenience for physical SIMs, order online and just pickup at a stall at the airport.

Can you actually get a European sim without showing ID? That would kind of surprise me, there has been a big push to get rid of anonymous phone numbers.

Swype by Yallo is the eSIM I've used.

My Telecom Italia SIM ran out of roaming data while I was in Switzerland, and there was no way to top up. Swype had a first month free promo, so I signed up from my Airbnb. I did have to send a photo of my documents, but the total time from download to data was less than 30m.

I took a quick (1 week) work trip to Germany this summer. I was trying to figure out how to get a SIM before getting on the train, when I remembered I still had the eSIM in my phone. I downloaded the app and bought data - $15 per month + $3 per day (since I was roaming). Not only was it super convenient, but I had unlimited data with roaming. I don't think even local cards get you that.

For short trips to Europe, I definitely recommend Swype for its convenience.

> I did have to send a photo of my documents

Didn't the parent ask about not having to show ID to get a SIM card?

I’m fine with showing ID but if I’m traveling I of course do not have a local ID and if it’s online it’s basically impossible to properly check ids.

Depends on the country. UK has no national identity cards, you can buy a (prepay) SIM in the supermarket and pay cash if you like.

Here in Latvia you can buy sims from all major providers without any ID for as low as 0.99€. The caveat is that you have to top up them regularly because they have expiry times depending on the amount you top them up.

Depends, I think you can get them in Tesco pretty easily, and the MVNO I was talking about was giving numbers for their data plan from the UK, but with roaming all over Europe.

I think it's more difficult in Germany than a lot of other countries.

In France, providers will require you to provide KYC information within 14-30 days of obtaining the SIM, or it will be deactivated. Suitable for a short-term travel use case.

In Sweden there are usually stands where you can pick up sims for free, in airport outside shops etc.

Anybody who thinks esims don't have issues hasn't seen much of the "real" world. In a lot of countries esim still isn't even an option, especially if you're a visitor. At least in developing countries getting a physical SIM is as easy as paying a small fee on your way out the airport and popping it in your phone or picking one up in a convenience store.

I just arrived here in Panama and got a local sim for $5/week from a grocery store. The esim options were 2x this price and required installing special apps.

My bet is that this is going to change a lot, very soon.

Apple apparently felt comfortable enough with the eSIM situation in the US to drop legacy-SIM already. The fact that they couldn't do this worldwide yet is because, as you say, eSIM availability is still spotty around the world.

However, the fact that they're moving to eSIM-only is a huge flashing warning to telcos around the world that the time to sort out their eSIM support is now. Otherwise, they'll soon be chasing away their affluent iPhone users.

I think the transition will now proceed pretty quickly. Physical SIMs have only continued on due to market inertia.

In a few years we'll look back and think "remember when SIM cards were physical objects... that was weird wasn't it?"

Appel was a major driver of esim because they are obsessed with controlling every part of their phone so having a SIM card they don't control in their phone didn't fit well with them at all.

So dropping the SIM in the US is more a consumer hostile move to save a few cents and force them to use the tech Apple wants you to use then anything else.

They can't do that in many other countries as neither carrier nor population where okay with accepting not having a SIM slot.

eSIM is easily usable in the EU many people still insist on using physical sim cards for various reasons, similar "unlocked" phones are the standard in many EU countries. I'm not even sure it's legal to sell carrier locked phones in all EU countries, I think it isn't at least in some.

I think you underestimate how easy Apple has made it to switch carriers with eSIMs. I can have several stored on my phone and activate them with a few touches. Very consumer friendly, no need to go to the store or even shuffle SIM cards while taxiing to the gate.

I agree, I also remember when sim cards were credit card sized!

I keep seeing this sentiment and it's incredibly obvious that people are traveling to European or developed Asian countries. The sim situation in most other countries is exactly as you describe if not worse, and that's also accounting for language barriers between the traveler and the vendors.

Airalo just works in most of the world. I travel quite a lot and eSIM made my life a whole lot simpler.

Before you had to find an operator kiosk at the airport and negotiate with someone there who might or might not speak a language you speak to try to get a pre-paid vaguely firing your need if one exists. Now you can just pre-buy in app before your flight and everything pretty much just works.

can't a regular sim be typed in manually and used as an esim? at least that's how it worked on my iphone a year ago.

eSIM can be sold in physical stores as well, just as a QR code rather than a physical chip. Sibling comment addresses the cost issue as well.

I'm Canadian. I recently travelled to Spain & Portugal for more than a month, used a Hong Kong esim for data for a few days until I found a local physical SIM. Then swapped between both depending on the coverage.

I bought the esim at the airport, while waiting for my bags.

> So you pay for an ESIM from an MNVO, get a qr code, install, and you're good to go in 5 minutes from any network connection.

Physical SIMs require no network access at all: as a matter of fact, acquiring a SIM may be a prerequisite of getting a network connection in a foreign country.

That has never been my problem. Dealing with people, stores, passport verification, scams, etc has been.

The increased competition from international MVNOs likely also helps drive prices down.

When you're traveling and don't want to plan weeks ahead, your options with physical SIMs typically were either

1) special roaming-oriented SIM cards from your local country (which were still a massive hassle and had to be ordered days in advance to allow for delivery),

2) getting a SIM in the destination country (hassle and might not always be possible)

3) very expensive offerings from your own provider, if they even had something better than the aforementioned car-per-GB rates.

Now, you can get an eSIM from an MVNO that's from a third country, before travel or from the airport/hotel WiFi, usually also bypassing any bureaucratic bullshit that the destination country imposes on getting a local SIM.

And these "travel eSIMs" are often cheaper than local offerings even for use in your home country.

For now. And the move to "eSIMs" will be a one-way door. There's a reason embrace, extend, extinguish works as a strategy.

You mentioned all the conveniences which I never disputed. As an optional feature I have no problem against them.

This is not a problem anymore. I visit about 4+ countries every year (hello IMF / World Bank contracts) and have done 43 countries in last 6 years (on Google Fi, T-mobile and Indian Jio).

T-mobile includes 5GB / month of full speed international roaming in virtually any country in the world. (15 GB for $50 after it).

Getting a new local e-sim does not scale when you visit multiple countries or area in a jurisdiction which requires ton of documentation (including a local address or contact they can verify). Even then, it’s complicated.

For example, just this year I learnt that a local Indian e-sim (pre-paid) will not work in state of Kashmir in India or parts of Xinjiang in China.

In some countries no domestic carrier supports eSIM.

Here's a map, thanks to a Redditor: https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/x8r6a3/countries_that_...