Fahfoofnik
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How to add and transfer eSIMs to iPhone
Thank you for this great info, @paulan ! If anything, your comments & experience with the Orange Holiday Europe eSIM has convinced me that it's the way to go. From some other reading I've done, Brexit really hasn't been too big a deal in this specific instance of not having a UK-based (+44) and local number. I can make calls using that Orange eSIM just fine.paulan said:
So, my experiences: I have used Orange's Holiday Europe successfully which gives you a French number that can be used throughout Europe with no roaming fees. It worked great for my wife and I in Italy. A bit pricy but you get the QR code via email which you can install before you travel and Orange has deals with the major country carriers. After a month you need to provide your identity documents (which you would have to do if you were getting a physical SIM in a store) and then the SIM will last for a year before expiring without use.
I have used Airalo to buy data only plans for Europe and the US. No issues to buy in advance and install and fairly cheap. This is the easiest if you only need data.
Fahfoofnik: The UK has been where it has been hard to find an eSIM so I have had to use a physical Lebara SIM which I got forwarded from a friend in the UK to Canada as you cannot get one except in the UK. However, as I am travelling to Ireland/England in a month I looked for eSIM providers again and found that LycaMobile is now supporting eSIMs so I bought one and was able to install it and activate it in Canada. Note however that their buying process still requires a UK address although they send you the eSIM QR code to your email. Who knows what, if anything, they will mail to my friend in the UK.
Last: make sure you understand how to set up the 2 SIMs on your phone or you may not get any of the cost savings from having a local SIM. Canadian carriers love to 'offer' their "roam like home" flat fee daily rates, but the problem with these is that any use of their SIM causes the daily flat fee to accrue: ie making just 1 text message would trigger the flat fee and cost CA$15 (and this goes to Apple's poor tools to manage multiple lines so it is not that hard to make a mistake). So I have had to call the Canadian carriers support to turn off flat fee roaming and switch to a-al-carte roaming and take the risk that I know what I am doing.
Finally, a small rant about iMessage. iMessage loves to drop your home cell number from being active in iMessage (in under 48 hours in my experience)) when the SIM is not active in a phone. This messes up all your iMessages that do not use your email address and it is not that uncommon for people to use just your cell phone number as your contact for iMessage as they don't understand it is not an SMS. So, you have to keep your home network active when you travel to not mess up iMessage even if you have a local data plan. If it were not for this I would likely just put my home SIM away for my travels and not try to keep 2 numbers alive when I travel. Note that WhatsApp does not do this even though it is tied to your phone number.
This will be my first trip with an eSIM-only iPhone (14 Pro). Should be interesting.My plan is to just turn OFF my local/USA eSIM completely when we get on the plane, and have the already-activated Orange eSIM ready to go. Will figure it out for my kid's iPhone 11 (physical SIM) & iPhone 13 mini that's got an eSIM. From what I've read, completely turning OFF the USA eSIM will work -- texts going to our USA numbers won't come through, but the good news there is that in the past -- before switching the USA SIM/phone number off -- I've changed my iMessage "Send from this" source to my Apple ID to all family and important people for while we're away -- and they remember that for the 7-14 days we're out of the country, use that Apple ID/email address as iMessage "Send To."The last two times in the UK, neither my wife nor I have had problems when asked by the iPhone "Do you want to add this phone number [the UK local phone number] to iMessage?" We've said yes, and it's been fine -- and then we switch it back to our USA numbers when we return. Will be interested to see how this works with an eSIM.
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How to add and transfer eSIMs to iPhone
The thing I'm hoping for is an easier way to acquire an eSIM *with a local phone number* when going overseas.Traveling to the UK/Republic of Ireland possibly soon, and most deals I'm finding are for data only. Going with my family -- we don't have nor want WhatsApp accounts to communicate -- and the last few international trips I've taken I was grateful to have a Three UK physical SIM so I could make reservations, call locations we were driving to, and call each other if/when separated with a local phone number.Most of the deals I see on esimdb dot com or the like are all "data only." There are a couple EU-based eSIM plans with a phone number, but they're from France and those eSIMs don't give out a local UK/IRE phone number. Maybe it doesn't matter. I dunno.I guess it's just gonna take time for the EU to catch up (America too) to the eSIM trend.
