eSIM Help

[RosscoPCole]

I'm going to Florida at the end of the month. I've been told an eSIM is the way to go for my mobile phone. Having never used one before what is the best for use in America? Also how do they work? Please forgive me for my lack of understanding, but I'm totally new to this. Can you use your existing number? Is it easy to set up? Any help and advice would be gratefully received.

[MrBen.911]

Have a look at Airalo and Nomad apps, both have options for USA. It's the most convenient route, but not necessarily the cheapest - sometimes a local sim bought at the airport is better.

Note if you use the eSIMs through the apps, they are data only, you don't get a phone number. On most phones you can run both your own sim (with Data Roaming turned off) and the eSIM at the same time, but remember calls will be very expensive. A local SIM is better if you are going to make calls, other than WhatsApp calls etc.

[AWRacing]

Double check your current supplier doesnt include the US in you package.

On esims i used Nomad when we went to Egypt last month, nice and easy to set up. Took out a 5gb deal but in reality couldve gotten away with a 3gb one and that was with my wife and our boys teathering off of it when not on the hotel wifi.

[toastyhamster]

Also double check you can use an esim. Bought my eldest an ebay iPhone 11 a year or so back, turns out it's a US model and the carriers there have the ability to block esim use, and there's no way to undo it. Youngest and me bought at the same time and we're both fine.

Google should help.

Ended up buying an iPhone 12 for him, got a big US holiday coming up. Airolo for us probably, most of the big holiday forums have this covered.

[RosscoPCole]

AWRacing said:

Double check your current supplier doesnt include the US in you package.

On esims i used Nomad when we went to Egypt last month, nice and easy to set up. Took out a 5gb deal but in reality couldve gotten away with a 3gb one and that was with my wife and our boys teathering off of it when not on the hotel wifi.

Thanks. We are with Tesco. They suggested an eSIM as they don't include the US in their packages.

toastyhamster said:

Also double check you can use an esim. Bought my eldest an ebay iPhone 11 a year or so back, turns out it's a US model and the carriers there have the ability to block esim use, and there's no way to undo it. Youngest and me bought at the same time and we're both fine.

Google should help.

Ended up buying an iPhone 12 for him, got a big US holiday coming up. Airolo for us probably, most of the big holiday forums have this covered.

I never thought of that, so will check, thanks.

This may be a silly question. Can you get an eSIM where you can make calls and texts or are they just data?

Edited by RosscoPCole on Monday 1st July 23:00

[Trustmeimadoctor]

yes you can
i tend to use a three pay as you go sim for usa travel as you get a phone number just load it up with £10 and i think that gets you 12GB

it can also be converted to an e-sim


and then the mrs uses an airlo sim just so we have redundancy

Edited by Trustmeimadoctor on Wednesday 3rd July 12:10

[shirt]

I am also not very IT minded but just did this in France.

I bought the e sim from the orange website. 100GB data and a load of minutes for €50.

I then got an email saying how to install. I did it the easy way by downloading and logging into their app.

During setup it asked me what I wanted to do in each circumstance. E.g when making voice calls did I want to use my regular number or the French one.

If I power off my phone I just need an extra log in step to unlock the e sim.

Very easy all round