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I wish the prices were even remotely competitive, every time I check and compare, it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I just checked

by doix 3y ago

I wish the prices were even remotely competitive, every time I check and compare, it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I just checked Morocco, and it's $31.50 for 5GB. I think I paid 7$ for 20GB or something. Then again, I have a phone with a regular SIM card. Maybe the prices are comparable if you have a new iPhone with no regular SIM slot and are forced to use an eSIM. In my mind, eSims should be cheaper, since there's no physical component there, but somehow that doesn't seem to be the case.

waihtis 3y ago
Airalo has decently cheap eSIMs, at least for the US (much cheaper than buying from the big telcos), and a part of the appeal is not having to hassle through buying and installing a chip. I can buy the Airalo eSIM before boarding the plane and have it readily loaded when the plane lands.
phh 3y ago
> it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I have the feeling that this will forever be true. Local SIM usually expect that people don't use their whole quota, while eSIM will
- shellfishgene 3y ago
  Isn't it also necessarily true because the eSIM companies only resell bandwidth from the local telcos who actually own the network? Why would they let a third company undercut their prices...
madeofpalk 3y ago
Isn't that always inherently true? With travel SIMs, what you're buying is convenience. Not to mention, some countries have annoying KYC processes for getting SIM cards/service. Presumably this bypasses that.
- doix 3y ago
  If I'm buying a SIM, there's a physical cost to manufacture the thing. There's no such cost with eSIMs. Also, to sell me a physical SIM, the telecom has to employ somebody to stand there and sell me a SIM. With an eSIM there's a website and it doesn't matter if 1 or 1000 people are buying SIMs at the same time. I would think that eventually the ability to scale would push the costs of eSIM down to be cheaper/the same as regular SIMs, but we aren't there yet. > With travel SIMs, what you're buying is convenience. I guess I'm not the target market here. Spending 5 minutes to get a cheaper + better deal is worth it to me then overpaying for limited data to avoid having to talk to somebody.
  - etrautmann 3y ago
    But when you need more data and you’re in the middle of nowhere, you can just pay to add a bit more.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      Except with most of these esim apps, you can't. You need a little data to buy more data.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    The local provider is, locally, usually a monopoly or near monopoly. They want to own the whole customer journey, be able to market/upsell other products, etc. That's why they directly sell service at rates far cheaper than they will let roaming providers access.
  - codetrotter 3y ago
    > to sell me a physical SIM, the telecom has to employ somebody to stand there and sell me a SIM In France there is a telco called Free, that has vending machines for SIM cards all across the country inside of various kiosks. It’s pretty great. I was there recently for a couple of months, and I went to one of these vending machines. Filled out some basic info about myself and paid with my debit card. The machine gave me a SIM card that I then put in my phone and have been using since. The amount of gigabytes was decent too. I am in a different country now, but still in the EU. Here I can still use the same SIM, but the amount of traffic that that plan gives me outside is pretty low compared to what it gave me in France. For now it’s been ok though, because here I have fiber at home. When I was in France the AirBnB we stayed at didn’t have any internet so that’s why I bought the French SIM with sufficient amount of gigas to get my work done. Anyway, this vending machine in kiosks system is awesome. More telcos should do that in other countries too.
smileybarry 3y ago
> it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. That's also been the case for me, but I haven't encountered a local carrier that agreed to sell a prepaid eSIM. It was always a physical SIM card, and I didn't want to swap out my home SIM because I needed to be reachable via text. (Plus: FaceTime & iMessage get reset if you do that)
aembleton 3y ago
I think that's country specific. For example, for Denmark its £4.70 for 5GB [1]. Thats probably cheaper than buying a local sim and worth it for the convenience especially as I tend to use far less than that and only need 1GB as I'll just go for a few days. Then I may as well pay for the £1.10, 1GB option. 1. https://esimdb.com/denmark/bnesim https://esimdb.com/denmark/bnesim
gorbypark 3y ago
There are some exceptions to the rule. I always go the local SIM route, and after burning through all my data from Andorra Telecom I decided to look at Airalo (and about 20 other eSIM providers). Airalo was cheaper for more than twice the data as buying a local SIM from Andorra Telecom. I could only get about 18GB/mo from Andorra Telecom (without a long term contract) but was able to get 45GB from Airalo and for a couple euros less per month. Also, the eSIM vs physical SIM was much more convenient.
lakpan 3y ago
True, but sometimes it’s not. I wanted to get a SIM card in Albania and they were charging €20 at the airport. After waiting for like 30 minutes for their slow-ass service of 2 people ahead of me, I just tapped 3 buttons and left the airport, getting half the data probably. I wish I had done it sooner anyway.

by doix 3y ago

waihtis 3y ago

Airalo has decently cheap eSIMs, at least for the US (much cheaper than buying from the big telcos), and a part of the appeal is not having to hassle through buying and installing a chip. I can buy the Airalo eSIM before boarding the plane and have it readily loaded when the plane lands.

phh 3y ago

> it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I have the feeling that this will forever be true. Local SIM usually expect that people don't use their whole quota, while eSIM will

shellfishgene 3y ago
Isn't it also necessarily true because the eSIM companies only resell bandwidth from the local telcos who actually own the network? Why would they let a third company undercut their prices...

madeofpalk 3y ago

Isn't that always inherently true? With travel SIMs, what you're buying is convenience. Not to mention, some countries have annoying KYC processes for getting SIM cards/service. Presumably this bypasses that.

doix 3y ago
If I'm buying a SIM, there's a physical cost to manufacture the thing. There's no such cost with eSIMs. Also, to sell me a physical SIM, the telecom has to employ somebody to stand there and sell me a SIM. With an eSIM there's a website and it doesn't matter if 1 or 1000 people are buying SIMs at the same time. I would think that eventually the ability to scale would push the costs of eSIM down to be cheaper/the same as regular SIMs, but we aren't there yet. > With travel SIMs, what you're buying is convenience. I guess I'm not the target market here. Spending 5 minutes to get a cheaper + better deal is worth it to me then overpaying for limited data to avoid having to talk to somebody.
- etrautmann 3y ago
  But when you need more data and you’re in the middle of nowhere, you can just pay to add a bit more.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    Except with most of these esim apps, you can't. You need a little data to buy more data.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  The local provider is, locally, usually a monopoly or near monopoly. They want to own the whole customer journey, be able to market/upsell other products, etc. That's why they directly sell service at rates far cheaper than they will let roaming providers access.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  > to sell me a physical SIM, the telecom has to employ somebody to stand there and sell me a SIM In France there is a telco called Free, that has vending machines for SIM cards all across the country inside of various kiosks. It’s pretty great. I was there recently for a couple of months, and I went to one of these vending machines. Filled out some basic info about myself and paid with my debit card. The machine gave me a SIM card that I then put in my phone and have been using since. The amount of gigabytes was decent too. I am in a different country now, but still in the EU. Here I can still use the same SIM, but the amount of traffic that that plan gives me outside is pretty low compared to what it gave me in France. For now it’s been ok though, because here I have fiber at home. When I was in France the AirBnB we stayed at didn’t have any internet so that’s why I bought the French SIM with sufficient amount of gigas to get my work done. Anyway, this vending machine in kiosks system is awesome. More telcos should do that in other countries too.

smileybarry 3y ago

> it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. That's also been the case for me, but I haven't encountered a local carrier that agreed to sell a prepaid eSIM. It was always a physical SIM card, and I didn't want to swap out my home SIM because I needed to be reachable via text. (Plus: FaceTime & iMessage get reset if you do that)

aembleton 3y ago

I think that's country specific. For example, for Denmark its £4.70 for 5GB [1]. Thats probably cheaper than buying a local sim and worth it for the convenience especially as I tend to use far less than that and only need 1GB as I'll just go for a few days. Then I may as well pay for the £1.10, 1GB option. 1. https://esimdb.com/denmark/bnesim https://esimdb.com/denmark/bnesim

gorbypark 3y ago

There are some exceptions to the rule. I always go the local SIM route, and after burning through all my data from Andorra Telecom I decided to look at Airalo (and about 20 other eSIM providers). Airalo was cheaper for more than twice the data as buying a local SIM from Andorra Telecom. I could only get about 18GB/mo from Andorra Telecom (without a long term contract) but was able to get 45GB from Airalo and for a couple euros less per month. Also, the eSIM vs physical SIM was much more convenient.

lakpan 3y ago

True, but sometimes it’s not. I wanted to get a SIM card in Albania and they were charging €20 at the airport. After waiting for like 30 minutes for their slow-ass service of 2 people ahead of me, I just tapped 3 buttons and left the airport, getting half the data probably. I wish I had done it sooner anyway.