eSIM Stat Roaming
In August 2023 I want to visit a friend in Switzerland for a few days. Since I want to be online there outside of my friends’ WiFi and my mobile phone provider charges horrendous amounts for data roaming, I’m wondering whether a Swiss prepaid card is worth it. I remember that I have a physical SIM card in my phone, but it also supports eSIMs. So perhaps I could buy one from home so that it is available when I enter the country. However, while researching on the Internet, I came across a concept that was previously unknown to me: numerous international providers have specialized in selling eSIMs that only offer data volume for exactly this case. There are options for individual countries or entire regions. The prices are usually staggered according to available volume and validity period (e.g. 5GB, which can be used up within 10 days). Since these aren’t the big cell phone providers, but rather companies I’ve never heard of, I’m a bit suspicious. But I also rely on the recommendation on a travel advisor site. If it doesn’t work, it would of course be annoying, but financially manageable.
After purchasing, I will receive a QR code by email within a few minutes. I scan this with my cell phone, which automatically sets up the eSIM. When I enter Switzerland, I just have to set it to be used for mobile data. So I don’t have to deactivate my German cell phone number for calls and text messages. My suspicion turns out to be unfounded: I don’t notice any difference to my usual cell phone use. The only thing that bothers me is that I have no overview of the data used or still available. However, I assume that 10GB should be more than enough for a four-day vacation, during which I will often be on my girlfriend’s WiFi. When I leave the country, I simply switch the data reception back to the German SIM card.
In December of the same year I travel to Turkey. Based on my good experience, I would like to buy an eSIM again, but I’m looking for other providers that might be cheaper or that give you an overview of data usage. The prices are similar for all providers, but there are those that offer an app that allows you to monitor consumption and add additional volume directly if necessary. I also come across a provider that has daily plans with unlimited data and decide to give it a try. When I arrive in Turkey, I switch the mobile data to the eSIM like last time, and initially nothing happens. I am angry and feel betrayed, but I have other things to do first (passport control, etc.). But later it works; The eSIM just took a while to activate, but after that it worked perfectly.
When I get to the Turkish apartment, the next hurdle awaits me: I also want to be online with the iPad, which is only WiFi-capable. To do this, I create a mobile hotspot on my cell phone and connect the iPad to it, which shows me: “Connected – No Internet access”. However, the cell phone is still online. I look at the provider’s website again, and indeed: if I had read it carefully, I would have known that tethering was not allowed on tariffs with unlimited volume. From the provider’s perspective this makes perfect sense, but I overlooked it because I didn’t even know that this was something the provider could influence. Since I’ve already paid for seven days, I search the Internet for a workaround and find it very quickly: I download a free app on my cell phone (no problem, since I have unlimited data volume) that sets up a proxy server sets up. On the iPad I now only have to enter in the WLAN settings that the data traffic should go via this proxy server. The first day the whole thing is a bit unreliable until I come up with the idea of turning off the battery optimization for the proxy app on my phone so that the operating system doesn’t automatically shut it down after a while in the background. From now on I have a reliable internet connection on both devices and no longer have to worry about the available volume.
(Mehmet Aydin)