Ubigi: Travel eSIM mobile data

My experience is based on using Ubigi on a 3 week trip to Japan on an iPhone 15. Following the instructions were easy. I made sure to prep my phone a few days before my departure. Before my flight took off from the States, I made sure to turn AT&T off. By off, I mean everything possible set to off. If you don’t, your cell provider will likely rack up ludicrous daily charges on your bill. When I arrived in Japan, I switched to the Ubigi eSIM in settings and turned on data roaming for it. After a minute, I was connected and was able to use the internet. I bought 10 gigs of data which more than lasted my trip with relatively high use. I played Pokémon GO often and used Maps and Google, but made sure to reserve video streaming for when I was on WiFi. Please remember you won’t be able to make calls or texts while using this, so use an app like Facebook Messenger or Snapchat to communicate with people if you have to. I also got signal just about anywhere! Connection was mostly good in the mountains of Yamaguchi. I also got great service out in the boonies of Gunma. Naturally, connection was also flawless in Tokyo. I did have a hiccup where I couldn’t connect to anything while I was in Yokohama, but I slept on it and it worked in the morning. I will be using this again for my next trip to Japan!

I’ve been told this works great if there are no mishaps. But when there’s issues, there doesn’t seem much effort to help troubleshoot beyond the standard basic screenshots already listed on the site. I bought an esim for Japan and it’s been installed but I ran into issues with the connectivity and being stuck on the “resume account creation” most likely due to the lack of connectivity. I have restarted, switched every possible combination of sim/esim/Wi-Fi on and off and submitted an email detailing this complete with screenshots of my esim details to show to double check the details. The reply back I received was the same screenshots used to show a user to how to create an account by installing the esim. When I replied back that I have done this & if it can’t be fixed further then I would like a refund and I got hit back with “ we invite you to reboot your device and check again the steps on the previous email” with no mention of starting a refund process either. I’ve wasted two days of my trip in the beginning trying to figure this out with nothing resolved and now I’ll have to spend more money to get something else. Rating it for 2 stars because I actually got a reply back and it was at least within 24 hours each time.

This was my first time using an eSIM (device is an iPhone 12) and Ubigi worked great on a recent month-long trip to Italy. I was able to set it up be while already abroad (in Serbia) without any issues, the step by step instructions Ubigi offered worked as written. I bought a country specific 10GB/30day plan. Reception in Italy was solid - LTE in nearly all places except when truly out in the boonies and even there it was usually 3G instead of no reception at all, overall performing as well as I would have expected a locally bought physical SIM to have done. Given how expensive US carrier roaming rates have become (I have AT&T) and not wanting to waste time looking for a local SIM provider, etc, I’m very glad to have found Ubigi and look forward to using their services on future trips abroad as well. One caveat is that this is a data only plan and while WhatsApp text and calling worked just fine, I had issues trying to call local numbers via Skype. Not sure if that’s specifically a limitation on this kind of data plan but I wasn’t able to find a good explanation otherwise. IMessage would also sometimes work via the data network and other times try to send as SMS and therefore fail. A few texts I only received when I reactivated my primary SIM stateside but that wasn’t an issue for my needs. I also didn’t bother with trying WiFi activating my primary US cell number as Id read some issues that are carrier (AT&T) specific and may still trigger roaming charges that I wanted to avoid, and so iI can’t comment on how that specific feature works on an eSIM like Ubigi.