E-Sim for Travel

[Weitz]

Has anyone used an E-Sim before? Learned about these recently and plan on using one when I am in Europe for 3 weeks shortly.

I have been looking at Airalo as I have been offered a discount on it. Any one have any experiences with them or others?

[sleepingmoose]

I’ve done an e-sim in the US with T-Mobile. It works great.

[jar_e]

We used AirAlo in the US for a month. It was good but kinda messed with our iMessage as we couldn’t use our primary home numbers for iMessage so everyone had to message us via email or an app.

First world problem obviously but was a little bit of a hassle.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by jar_e

We used AirAlo in the US for a month. It was good but kinda messed with our iMessage as we couldn’t use our primary home numbers for iMessage so everyone had to message us via email or an app.

First world problem obviously but was a little bit of a hassle.

iMessage won’t work eh? I was hoping it would.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by Weitz

iMessage won’t work eh? I was hoping it would.

I should clarify. We had a data only E-sim. iMessage worked…but was sending from your email addy instead of your primary 403 phone number. The problem we had was that if someone messaged one of our numbers, we wouldn’t get it. It was a minor hassle but a hiccup nonetheless.

[Scoopdogg]

Yeah I used an E-sim this summer for our trip to the US. I was missing messages from buddies because as soon as you hook your phone up to a new sim card, your old number doesn't work.

If you use whatsapp or another messaging service you'll be fine. Some of my friends thought I was ignoring them....

[tony-soprano]

I had purchased a Orange travel e-sim and set it up before I got to Europe. If you want you can keep both your numbers active still with this or disable data on your Canadian plan and activate data on the e-sim plan.

https://travel.orange.com/en/

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by jar_e

I should clarify. We had a data only E-sim. iMessage worked…but was sending from your email addy instead of your primary 403 phone number. The problem we had was that if someone messaged one of our numbers, we wouldn’t get it. It was a minor hassle but a hiccup nonetheless.

I would guess that would just be the case for non iMessage texters? Our WiFi iPad gets all the iMessages for our account like normal, but I guess I wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t getting texts from androids.

[EldrickOnIce]

Is this the time/place where we say hopefully providers in Canada get out of the dark ages shortly?
My plan with US carrier offers 5GB/month high speed data in 210 countries, included. When we moved here 5 years ago, high speed data was limited to Canada and Mexico, now expanded.
Hopefully this evolution is coming sooner than later.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Is this the time/place where we say hopefully providers in Canada get out of the dark ages shortly?
My plan with US carrier offers 5GB/month high speed data in 210 countries, included. When we moved here 5 years ago, high speed data was limited to Canada and Mexico, now expanded.
Hopefully this evolution is coming sooner than later.

And give up that $14/day fee to use my data I already paid for in another country? Highly doubt it. Gotta keep bring in those billions in profit.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Is this the time/place where we say hopefully providers in Canada get out of the dark ages shortly?
My plan with US carrier offers 5GB/month high speed data in 210 countries, included. When we moved here 5 years ago, high speed data was limited to Canada and Mexico, now expanded.
Hopefully this evolution is coming sooner than later.

Come on man. Telus is going to charge you a fee if you pay your bill with a credit card soon. As if they'll ever give up those roaming fees.

[Weitz]

For what it’s worth I set up the esim and everything seems to be working fine. Been getting iMessages from people in Canada no problem.

[Jimmy Stang]

I'll be giving Airalo a try soon on a quick trip to Europe. Not having to pull my existing sim out is appealing. On previous trips I took a secondary phone to put my Canadian sim in (to not miss any important texts or voicemails) and then bought a local physical sim to put into my primary phone.

This time I'll get a data-only eSim plan from Airalo and see what happens. Between iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. plus the ability to still receive (at no charge, as long as I don't respond) SMS and calls on my Canadian number, I don't think that I'll miss anything.

Weitz - any further thoughts or observations in Airalo now that you're a few days in?

[slots881]

I used this data only sim card for a trip in September. It worked flawlessly. Same as others, just data, but I mostly use WhatsApp anyways.
https://a.co/d/2GYFio0

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I'll be giving Airalo a try soon on a quick trip to Europe. Not having to pull my existing sim out is appealing. On previous trips I took a secondary phone to put my Canadian sim in (to not miss any important texts or voicemails) and then bought a local physical sim to put into my primary phone.

This time I'll get a data-only eSim plan from Airalo and see what happens. Between iMessage, WhatsApp, etc. plus the ability to still receive (at no charge, as long as I don't respond) SMS and calls on my Canadian number, I don't think that I'll miss anything.

Weitz - any further thoughts or observations in Airalo now that you're a few days in?

No issues at all. Been working like a dream. Doesnt look like I’ll have to top up the data at all.

[Ryan Coke]

Haven’t used airalo (I’ll have to check into it) but I have used knowroaming in the US several times as well as in the UK. Minor issues with iMessage as talked about, but if i send them an iMessage then they respond it works fine.

Then I use talkatone to call using data, and it gives you a number (I have a US one). Very happy with knowroaming. $4 for a week of data roaming (1 gb).

[Jimmy Stang]

I am a couple of days into using Airalo in Ireland (stopover) and Scotland. So far so good. I installed the eSim before I left, and when I landed in Dublin I flipped it on. It took a little while to activate on the network for the first time, but it has been good since.

For those having iMessage issues, when you install the new sim, it asks you three questions: default line for voice and SMS (leave as your Canadian one, but don’t answer calls or send texts because we get gouged), which number to use for iMessage and FaceTime, and which one to use for mobile data (Airalo, obviously).

The second question about iMessage/FaceTime: Is it possible that you chose Airalo for that? Since Airalo actually has no number attached to it, you may have de-registered your own number for iMessage and FaceTime. The way I understood it was that you should keep your Canadian number for that as that’s more of an identifier/registration for iMessage and not how the data actually gets sent.

I left iMessage as my Canadian number, and I have been happily iMessaging here over mobile data (which is Airalo, obviously).

So far so good. I’ll update this thread with any issues. Until then, scotch awaits.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

I am a couple of days into using Airalo in Ireland (stopover) and Scotland. So far so good. I installed the eSim before I left, and when I landed in Dublin I flipped it on. It took a little while to activate on the network for the first time, but it has been good since.

For those having iMessage issues, when you install the new sim, it asks you three questions: default line for voice and SMS (leave as your Canadian one, but don’t answer calls or send texts because we get gouged), which number to use for iMessage and FaceTime, and which one to use for mobile data (Airalo, obviously).

The second question about iMessage/FaceTime: Is it possible that you chose Airalo for that? Since Airalo actually has no number attached to it, you may have de-registered your own number for iMessage and FaceTime. The way I understood it was that you should keep your Canadian number for that as that’s more of an identifier/registration for iMessage and not how the data actually gets sent.

I left iMessage as my Canadian number, and I have been happily iMessaging here over mobile data (which is Airalo, obviously).

So far so good. I’ll update this thread with any issues. Until then, scotch awaits.

FYI, for your first part, I did this for the first day and still got dinged for a Rogers Roaming fee and switched everything to AirAlo.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying but I had zero success not getting dinged with roaming and keeping my 403 number as the iMessage number. This article from AirAlo also states that you will need to uncheck your number too for send/receive.

https://www.airalo.com/help/troubles...i-use-imessage

I was able to FaceTime simply with my email FWIW.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Weitz

No issues at all. Been working like a dream. Doesnt look like I’ll have to top up the data at all.

How much data did you buy?

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by jar_e

FYI, for your first part, I did this for the first day and still got dinged for a Rogers Roaming fee and switched everything to AirAlo.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying but I had zero success not getting dinged with roaming and keeping my 403 number as the iMessage number. This article from AirAlo also states that you will need to uncheck your number too for send/receive.

https://www.airalo.com/help/troubles...i-use-imessage

I was able to FaceTime simply with my email FWIW.

Seems that Airalo has a bit of mixed messaging, as noted by this Reddit poster:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Airalo/comm...h_airalo_esim/

The way I interpreted it is that you should keep your primary for voice/sms and iMessage/FaceTime. The iMessage/Facetime setting doesn’t dictate how your data is sent (it still goes via Airalo), but rather your registration with the Apple servers.

So basically, stay registered with your primary Canadian number, but the messages go over the available internet connection - Airalo or wifi. Of course, data roaming needs to remain off on your Canadian number.

That being said, I may have an answer about your getting dinged by Rogers. Apparently when you register (or re-register) with iMessage, a background text gets sent to the Apple servers to activate iMessage. Even though invisible to you, this triggers the daily roaming package from Rogers, or in my case Fido (same pile).

I found this out the hard way when I was Italy a few years back. I swapped physical sims (put my Canadian sim in an old phone because I didn’t have dual sim at the time) and got dinged when iMessage activated my Canadian number on my other phone. Then I crushed my primary phone in a self inflicted act of stupidity, so I had so swap sims yet again, and got dinged for another day when iMessage reactivated in my other phone again.

After some whining to Fido, and some reading online, I discovered the hidden iMessage activation texts. Fido reversed some of the charges because I didn’t even send a text, but my phone did without my knowledge, so they took pity.

Another precaution that I took was, before I left, I contacted Fido and asked them to disable Fido Roam (their automatic daily roaming product) and went to pay per use for roaming. Their rates are still absurd, but it would be easier to swallow a $0.75 charge for an errant text vs. $15/day.