As discussed in my previous post, the cost of always-on data plans are too high for users like me who only occasionally need mobile data and occasionally need data overseas. While looking for a data plan for overseas use, I accidentally solved my domestic data needs. Any European reading this but until recently this flexibility was just not available. Even our Pre-paid SIMs require constant feeding to avoid activation and disconnect fees. In the rest of the world people only buy and pay for what they use.
In Colombia, on nearly every street you can see an abuela with a card table selling minutos. Need to make a call or add a little data to your phone. They can hook you up. In London, you can walk into most any convenience store and pick up a pre-paid SIM with data plan on it.
Minutos Vendor – Bogotá 2014 
Back in the US, we are finally moving away from carrier-locked phones. I bought my iPhone Xs, brand new from Apple. When I activated it on AT&T, it became carrier-locked. This is a device for which I had paid cash. I owned it outright. I still had to petition them to release me from their grip so I could use my phone with another SIM. The carriers are making it easier but you are still at their mercy.
The iPhone Xs introduced a second “eSIM” slot. In fall 2018, I shopped for eSIMs for a trip to Europe and found the options limited. I worked with AT&T to move my primary line to the eSIM to leave the physical SIM open for travel. While this did work, I found that AT&T’s support for eSIM was not fully baked. When I finished traveling for a bit, I ended up going back to a physical SIM to get AT&T services to work right. I had a friend going to Greece about the same time who had a similar eSIM experience with AT&T. There were many aspects of the AT&T eSIM experience that just did not seem thought out. For example, to activate the eSIM, you have to have an Internet connection. Obviously AT&T only tested this as a secondary SIM. I ended up having to join the AT&T store WiFi network to complete the activation of the line on the eSIM.
By last summer, I started seeing eSIM market targeting travelers developing. For my South American trip, I found GigSky. The process to buy the SIM and activate it was pretty easy. It relied on installing their app. I was able to get it all set up in advance so that it was active as soon as I landed in country. This would prove to be the best feature. I turned off roaming on my AT&T line and relied on AT&T WiFi. Amazingly everything just worked. I was able to receive, place phone calls. My Google Voice, Apple Messages & WhatsApp just worked. I was able to receive traditional SMS (green) messages but I was careful not to reply to them as it would have incurred a 50¢ charge per message. I had already worked this out ahead of time by using Google Voice if I wanted to text some one not on Apple Messages. In country I found that most everyone used WhatsApp even for voice calls. As long as I had data, I was fine. I think I bought 10GB for 17 days. On the last couple of days I still had plenty of surplus. I had WiFi for when I wanted to upload pictures. I avoided streaming music and podcasts. I was able to use Maps, TripIt, and Swarm without any trouble. Email just worked normally.
Apple provides tools to let you track cellular data use and turn it off on a per-app basis. I started with everything turned of and slowly added apps back as I wanted to use them. For me, the biggest data-consumer was my photos library. I relegated it to just use WiFi and had no problems even though I was taking gigabytes of pictures every day.
For my next trip to the UK, I had planned to use GigSky again. I shopped around a bit and found a new company, Airalo. I found their data plans to be much more affordable. I still had to download an app but it was mainly there to make it easy to monitor and top up my data. There was just one setting that I had to change per the directions. It’s worth noting this setting as if you later reset your Network Settings for some reason, you will have to repeat this change. Airalo worked great. I was able to set it up before leaving home and immediately had service when I landed at Heathrow. It was very affordable.
My USA eSIM 
My UK eSIM
This summer when I was looking for a data plan option for my iPad, I found Airalo again. Sure enough they have data plans that work in the USA. If I were going to use them full time, they would be slightly more expensive than AT&T. Remember my AT&T $10/mo plan costs $15.54. Airalo’s 5GB plan costs $16. Airalo wins because I have the choice of 3GB or 10GB depending on what my expected usage might be. If I am traveling in the US using my iPad to do work, I might opt for the bigger plan. Most of the time, I just want to keep my email and notes current on my iPad while I am away from trusted WiFi. For that $3 for 7 days is an easy choice. With no activation and cancellation fees, that is a real $3. And Airalo has a program to rebate returning customers. My plan at this point is to bounce between the $3 and $11 plans depending on what traveling I am doing. Right now, I’m not doing much traveling. Since I can let the plan lapse whenever I want, I can control the costs.
Airalo USA Plans 
Airalo UK Plans 
Gigsky UK Plans