Know your roaming data costs
The new ESIM card is a boon to consumers — especially travellers — and a possible threat to mobile networks
Roaming on cellular data overseas can be a painful — and costly — experience. Most people burnt by “bill shock” (it’s so bad it even has its own name) have found alternatives, such as using free Wi-fi or buying local SIM cards.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Free Wi-fi is, well, free. But it is hardly secure and can easily be used to siphon off your passwords and other personal details.
Buying a SIM is just technical enough to make it too complicated for most people — though travelling with a portable wireless hotspot (a Mifi) is the best alternative. You buy a SIM card, pop it into the Mifi, and tether your phone to it using Wi-fi. You still have your home SIM card, but use your phone’s Wi-fi for connectivity. I’ve been doing it for years. It isn’t cheap or easy, but it’s significantly cheaper than roaming.
Earlier this year, I used another option — one bound to make waves when it becomes broadly available. Many companies offer a universal SIM card for travelling that has very cheap rates per gigabyte or unlimited all-day rates. Some come in a Mifi. They are easier to use, but always more expensive than the DIY route with a Mifi.
But a new upgrade to the SIM card means life can be even simpler. Called an electronic SIM or ESIM, it is a way of linking your phone, using software, to a SIM (usually in a server rack at the service provider). The new iphone XS, which I am using, has an ESIM built in.
Earlier this year at the MWC Barcelona conference, I tested an
ESIM from Knowroaming, a clever company started by South African Gregory Gundelfinger (you’ll have heard of his famous father, Billy).
Instead of a Mifi, you simply scan a QR code and activate the ESIM on the phone. Instead of having to charge two devices and make sure the Mifi doesn’t burn a hole in whatever pouch or pocket it’s in (it generates a lot of heat), you use your primary device.
Instead of schlepping with data when you’re away, you can easily use your primary device. By keeping your home SIM card in, you can get SMSES, keep your messaging apps connected (they are linked to your mobile number) and instantly make calls.
Knowroaming offers an unlimited package of $3.99 (R56) a day in most countries and, ironically, $5.99 (R84) in the US. It currently works on the iphone XR/XS and Google Pixel 3 handsets — but expect it to expand and this new ESIM functionality to reach a critical point. It’s a whole new ball game for mobile networks.
SA network operators have fiercely resisted the dual-sim models that manufacturers such as Samsung and Huawei offer. If you want to buy such a handset, you have to do it directly and never through the network.
DUAL-SIM phones offer the potential for using data from another network; ESIM phones even more so. But no network will refuse to sell the latest iphone, even if it comes with a Trojan horse through the ESIM.
No network will refuse to sell the latest iphone, even if it comes with a Trojan horse via the ESIM