Global eSIM Plans

A global plan is the answer to a specific kind of trip: the one where you know the first flight and are honest about not knowing the rest. Instead of a profile scoped to a single country, you carry one profile whose entitlements span several regions, and it re-attaches to a local partner network each time you land somewhere new. Nothing is reinstalled, nothing is rescanned, and there is no counter service to find at two in the morning.

Technically, this is the same machinery as any other eSIM. The QR code we issue encodes an SM-DP+ server address and a matching activation code. Your phone opens a secure session with that server, authenticates using the EID burned into its embedded UICC, and downloads a signed profile. The difference with a global plan lies in what the profile is entitled to do afterwards — which partner networks it is permitted to attach to, and in how many markets.

When a global plan is the right shape

Global plans earn their keep in three situations. The first is genuinely uncertain travel: consulting work that moves, a long overland route, or a season where the next country depends on a client. The second is frequent long-haul hops — if you are in three regions inside a month, buying three local plans means three purchases, three installs and three sets of settings to get wrong. The third is the traveller who values not thinking about it, and is willing to pay a little more per gigabyte for that.

They are the wrong shape if you are going to one country and staying there. A month in Lisbon is served better and more cheaply by a local Portuguese plan or a European regional pass. We say this on the plan pages and we say it in support, because a member who overpaid for flexibility they never used does not come back.

What is in the profile

• Multi-region entitlement. Coverage spanning the regions listed on the plan, each backed by named roaming partners rather than a vague map.
• Data-only, no local number. No voice, no SMS, no receiving bank one-time passcodes. Keep your home SIM in the phone for those, with its data roaming switched off.
• Top-up rather than reinstall. Adding data extends the same profile. On global plans a top-up generally extends the validity window as well.
• LTE everywhere we sell, 5G where the partner supports it. Band availability depends on your handset as much as on the network.
• Tethering permitted unless a specific partner market restricts it, in which case the restriction is printed on the plan.

Installing before you fly

Install the profile at home, over a connection you trust, and leave it disabled until you need it. The download is the only step that requires internet; once the profile is on the device it sits dormant and costs nothing. Doing this in advance removes the two most common failure modes we see: an airport network that drops mid-download and consumes the activation code, and a handset that turns out to be carrier-locked at exactly the moment you cannot do anything about it.

When you land, enable the profile, set it as your mobile data line, and confirm that data roaming is off on your physical SIM. The access point name is normally provisioned automatically; if data does not flow within a few minutes of the phone attaching to a network, the plan page carries the exact APN string to enter manually.

What we will not tell you

We will not quote a speed. You are roaming on someone else's radio network, sharing a cell with everyone around you, at whatever hour you happen to be there. A figure written on a website in Chicago has no useful relationship to a Tuesday evening in a crowded neighbourhood eight thousand kilometres away, and publishing one would only be a promise we could not keep.

We will tell you which partners we attach to, which technologies they operate, and where members have reported that coverage thins. That information is on the coverage page and is updated when partners or reports change.