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Twilio Super SIM

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Re: Twilio Super SIM

#51
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU roaming rules are only valid for a certain time period. I can't get a polish SIM card and use it for an entire year in Germany, for example.

? Yes you can. I use a Polish SIM card(with Play) and use it all year round in UK, except for the 2-3 weeks or so when I'm back in Poland for holidays.

While you probably can. The law is written to prevent use cases like this, to avoid a race to the bottom between operators in different countries. Which makes sense since infrastructure costs can vary largely between countries, so it'd be unfair competition.

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#52
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU roaming rules are only valid for a certain time period. I can't get a polish SIM card and use it for an entire year in Germany, for example.

? Yes you can. I use a Polish SIM card(with Play) and use it all year round in UK, except for the 2-3 weeks or so when I'm back in Poland for holidays.

I was contemplating doing something similar, especially with eSIM on Apple Watch.

Calling you must be a bit of a pain. I just check and calling abroad from Lithuania is still 0.5 euro per minute...

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#53

Yay! We are approaching the SIMless world where you connect to mobile networks without a SIM or a universal SIM.

Kinda. I have eSIM phone and was hoping to sign up for a temporary plan while spending 3 days in Singapore - NAH! "Please enter your national ID number or come to our office to use eSIM". Meanwhile SIM cards are being sold while on plane, 100GB for 12 euros...

Ok, I guess I can then easily sign up for this while back in Europe? Nope, every local website has no signs of english sign up form, many require ID card...

The hope is I can do it via my phone menu, but even then calling me is going to be a rip-off (0.5 euro per minute when people been video calling for free for over a decade...)

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? Yes you can. I use a Polish SIM card(with Play) and use it all year round in UK, except for the 2-3 weeks or so when I'm back in Poland for holidays.

I was contemplating doing something similar, especially with eSIM on Apple Watch. Calling you must be a bit of a pain. I just check and calling abroad from Lithuania is still 0.5 euro per minute...

No, I just have a dual-sim phone(OnePlus 5T) - for data and calls in UK I have a proper British sim. But whenever I need to call my family or anyone in Poland, I just dial from the second(Polish) sim, and call for free, using the minutes that come with my Polish contract(and they can call me for free on my Polish number as well). It's also pretty useful whenever I'm somewhere in the UK that doesn't have a good signal on my main network - then I can use the Polish sim to connect to any network that has the best signal and just use data off that card temporarily.

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#55
At a first glance the pricing of $0.10 - $0.025 per megabyte in Europe seems somewhat expensive. The wholesale rate is €4.50 per gigabyte or $0.005c per megabyte. I assume the markup covers the cost of maintaining the account and the access to many networks worldwide. Can anyone who is already using GSM data in "IoT" devices comment on how much this compares to what you pay now?

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#57

This is great (one plan worldwide, but in places with weak currency like India, paying in dollars might turn out to be expensive), but overall isn't the industry moving in the direction of eSIMs (no physical SIM required)? Moreover, once OneWeb, Starlink and the like launch worldwide internet service, it might pretty much render the telecom industry as it is today irrelevant?

I think we can expect Starlink to have similar coverage to GPS: great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building. Also the expected receiver size for Starlink is an order of magnitude bigger than the one for a cellular network. For phones, tracking, etc the cellular network would still be superior. Something like a car might go with both starlink and cellular because anywhere where one is weak th…

> great in the country, useless in my bedroom in a multi-story building...

I'd think it'd work a bit like cable/DSL often does in an apartment company - one receiver for the building.

Re: Twilio Super SIM

#58
post #55

At a first glance the pricing of $0.10 - $0.025 per megabyte in Europe seems somewhat expensive. The wholesale rate is €4.50 per gigabyte or $0.005c per megabyte. I assume the markup covers the cost of maintaining the account and the access to many networks worldwide. Can anyone who is already using GSM data in "IoT" devices comment on how much this compares to what you pay now?

The value Twilio's offering is when you need coverage also outside Europe, in remote countries. Yes, you can get cheaper data plans to cover the EU, but those often come with very high data rates in other areas.
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