the economics of eSIM in a carry phone
Although I am near wifi most of the time (whether public wifi or the wifi from the mobile data router) 90% of the time, I pay for a minimal phone plan in the carry phone. When I’m on cell data it’s usually because I’m hiking with doggo or in a store reprovisioning.
existing setup
I have a $100/year1 unlimited voice+talk & 3GB each month plan. I don’t actually use 3GB/month on the phone but that’s the lowest data allotment they had. The most data I’ve ever used was 500MB and that was a one-time anomaly. I typically use between 100MB-250MB a month and zero talk or text. This month I’m on track to use ~50MB of data.
Note: I’ve got ~6 months left on the existing prepaid deal so plenty of time to ponder.
eSIM possibilities
comparo
This is just a few minute’s comparison, and all of the plans meet my requirements for the carry phone:
| provider | monthly price | backhaul | monthly GB | service | hotspot? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H2O Wireless | $8.33 | AT&T | 3GB | data, voice, SMS | no |
| Roamless 10GB PAYGO annual | $2.04 | AT&T + T-Mobile | 0.833GB | data | yes |
| Roamless 1GB | $3.95 | AT&T + T-Mobile | 1GB | data | yes |
| EIOTCLUB dual 1GB | $5.00 | AT&T + T-Mobile | 1GB | data | yes |
| EIOTCLUB triple 1GB | $15.00 | AT&T + T-Mobile + Verizon | 1GB | data | yes |
Some thoughts:
- I don’t need voice or text because I do that over Google Voice. 911 calls go through even on a phone with no voice service.
- Verizon isn’t really required because my main carrier is Verizon.
- hotspot isn’t really required because I have AT&T + T-Mobile failover in the router’s second SIM slot
conclusion
I’m in no hurry to do anything. But even after buying a physical eSIM card for the phone any of the AT&T + TMO plans above would more than break even in less than a year.
-
actually $114.40 after taxes and fees. But I’ll use list price for these comparisons ↩