This is a database of all (I assume) companies selling mobile data plans. https://esimdb.com
I recently switched over to VoIP and I went with a 1gb eSIM with BNESIM as a test. It’s not super fast but fast enough for here, reddit and mastodon and it doesn’t expire. When I use up this plan I’ll try another company.
Update: bnesim is not reliable. I detailed this in a more recent post.
Prices for Silent.link vary significantly based on the region or country where it is being used. In some areas, it can be around 1 USD per GB, while in others, like Lebanon, it can reach up to 1,800 USD per GB. The selected provider within a particular region also matters a lot. For example, in Mauritius, prices range from 3 USD per GB (Cellplus) up to 1,650 USD per GB (Mahanagar).
What are your thoughts on travel eSIMs? Many don’t require any kind of KYC, some, like yesim, allow cryptocurrency payments. And you’d blend with the rest of the international travellers.
My threat model doesn’t require me getting anonymous mobile internet, so I have paid with bank cards, but the travel eSIMs I’ve used (Airalo and Yesim) worked great and didn’t require any kind of KYC, even in countries where getting a local prepaid SIM would have required an ID.
So paid with non-KYC payment methods, they seem like a reasonable option to me.
Why not buy roaming package from your own GSM operator? Considering they already have your data, it would be more convenient and secure to pay a package from them, even if it costs a bit more than other options.
I went to vacation this month and bought roaming package from Deutsche Telekom instead of trying other travel sim packages or buying a local sim from the countries which I visited.
I read on the internet that there are antennas you can buy to reach wifi up to a km away. Maybe a good investment (I am looking for recommendations if anyone has one of these btw)
Notably, silent.link and JMP have very high latency for anyone not in Europe because they give you a European IP address. Others such as MobiMatter do this as well.
However, a silent.link support rep told me that a US gateway is on their 2025 roadmap. Hopefully, they are able to keep the price down.
That sounds wrong for JMP has they are only based in US/Canada:
JMP’s data-only mobile plan has both SIM and eSIM options. Our initial offering is a plan that roams over all of the USA and Canada on Rogers, Bell, Telus, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
Can I get a phone number for somewhere other than USA or Canada?
JMP currently only provides numbers in the USA and Canada. These numbers can make and receive both calls and messages with any country in the world.
Sounds wrong but it’s true. They also don’t seem to have any plans to add other IPs based on past discussion in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca. Also you can get eSIM data-only plans from them for countries outside of Canada/the US if you request it from their support team.
Silent.link seems really great, at least if you are in Europe where their IP gateways are. But the fact that the only accept cryptocurrency is pretty much a non-starter for me. I don’t want to have to figure out how to purchase cryptocurrency and use a wallet to make payments, just so I can use one particular service.
I also do not think that cryptocurrency payment is a special hallmark of being a better service from a privacy persepctive. It is well known that Bitcoin payments are not anonymous and easily traceable (even though the general public still falsely believes this).
There are good examples of highly respected privacy oriented services, like Mullvad, that offer many different payment methods. If Silent.link wants to be purest about not connecting your data usage to your identity, they could offer a voucher system like Mullvad does, for people who would like to pay with credit cards, etc.
In any case, it would be nice if there were more esim services that wanted to focus on privacy and security.
Whatever one thinks of NordVPN and their history, the model they’ve set up with Saily, where they route your esim data traffic through their VPN servers (bypassing the need for a on phone VPN app) is a good idea.
Also, if you already use a VPN app, using Saily, I imagine should allow you to run your data both, first, through the NordVPN/Saily, then your own VPN service, effectively getting a double hop VPN connection, from two different providers, which from a privacy perspective is pretty good. In fact, in this scenario, having your traffic entry point effectively being the NordVPN servers and your exit point going through a more trusted VPN service is ideal, since the entry point would generally be the one you would trust less.