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Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

firsty.app

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Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#101

Post by verticalscaler »

danogentili wrote: post #49

I manage my own ASN, I've been thinking of branching out, experimenting by creating my own eSIM. Given the huge number of virtual ISPs offering eSIMs at various prices, I mistakenly assumed it would be relatively easy to find documentation on how to do that (perhaps via some ISP selling traffic bundles to virtual ISPs); maybe someone can recommend any resources?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operato...

You'd be cutting deals with the existing providers, one by one, and acting as a reseller.

A dated doc: https://www.gtigroup.org/d/file/Resources/rep/2016-12-16/2eb...

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#102

Post by piyush_soni »

dewey wrote: post #82
piyush_soni wrote: post #56

Wow. 1.95 euros a day for the non-ad version? In India (where I live) I pay less than 3 euros a month for a 1.5GB everyday 5G connection and unlimited nationwide calls. So it's definitely not a "fair local rate" as they claim.

What would a one-day pre-paid card cost? That’s what you would need to compare.

I don't know because I've never taken a one day prepaid card, but had I been visiting India as a foreigner I'd just buy a local prepaid card for a month considering it's so cheap.

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#103

Post by SebastianKra »

gizmo wrote: post #63
SebastianKra wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-1 for Airalo - I've had an awful experience with their support. Through what was definitely a configuration error on their end, my eSIM stopped working after I added more data to my plan. So for a week, I went from WiFi to WiFi in contact with their support, while they kept asking the same questions over and over again. Is roaming on? Yes. Have you entered the correct APN? Yes. Have you tried all providers? Yes. Is…

I'm a happy Airalo customer. But also, I don't expect to get any customer support from low margin convenience services like these. If my eSIM stopped working for whatever reason I'd just shrug and buy a new one. Why fight with some underpaid customer support agent when there are sights to explore...

In hindsight, that's definitely the lesson I've learned from this.

But let's be clear: My issue isn't that their underpaid support staff didn't know what to do, it's that they apparently don't have the policies in place to just say "f* it. We don't know whats wrong. Let's refund or issue a new SIM". That would have been cheaper for everyone.

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#104

Post by wand3r »

Ad supported products are cancer. Also, other than the comments here, it only says "no ads" on the premium offering. No mention of ads in the "how Firsty works" section".

Not only do I hate this model but who the hell can afford to travel to America but can't afford 2 euro a day? Why even have an ad tier?

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#105

Post by diggan »

rglullis wrote: post #91
diggan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it's your network provider so they have access to your network activity, seems like enough to know if you've watched a video or not. And sure, you can pay and get a better experience, but not sure that's a fair comparison, this is free after all. If you can't afford to pay anything (sometimes people end up in shitty situations), then maybe watching a video for free internet isn't that big of a deal, whe…

Unless this company is targeting the "homeless people who are denied entry at public spaces" market, how hard is it to get access to a free wifi hotspot? Also, if you are such a bad situation that you can not afford to pay for phone service, what is the point of having this offered as a global solution? Seriously, what is the audience here?

> Unless this company is targeting the "homeless people who are denied entry at public spaces" market, how hard is it to get access to a free wifi hotspot?

There are plenty of places where there are no "free wifi hotspots", like many places that fulfill the extreme "not a city" criteria. Maybe it looks differently where you live, but if I go with my car one hour inland I'll end up in places where I'm sure I wouldn't be able to just find free wifi hotspots everywhere.

> Also, if you are such a bad situation that you can not afford to pay for phone service, what is the point of having this offered as a global solution?

I don't know, ask the company if they're planning to offer a global solution and if they say yes, ask them why? Not sure how that's an argument against the service in the first place...

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#106

Post by monksy »

vinay427 wrote: post #75
Addono wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airalo made getting a SIM in India so much easier. The KYC checks they introduced are poorly understood by local vendors making it really painful to get a local SIM. Also, being able to pre-purchase the SIM card means you can immediately browse when arriving. When we arrived, the WiFi in Chennai airport couldn't deliver the OTP to our foreign phone numbers, so without the pre-purchased eSIMs we wouldn't have been abl…

> I don't like it that they charge such a premium, it makes having data as a tourist somewhat of a privilege. I obviously don't like that the premium for an eSIM in a place like India is so high, but I think (having a brief look at esimdb.com) $20-30 USD for 10-15 GB is not unreasonable for the substantial portion of tourists to India who are already traveling from another continent [1], and considering it's in the r…

Holy crap "20$ not unreasonable for data in India"

That's a hard no. That's highway robbery. 2gb/day for a month with international calling was $8 with jio

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#107

Post by [deleted] »

universa1 wrote: post #93
progbits wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there cheap LTE+ embedded modules that support eSIM? All the ESP32/Arduino boards with mobile data that I've used in the past required a physical SIM card.

mhm, at least for older phones there is stuff like: https://esim.me/ no clue if it works to set the card up in a phone and then use it in a board?!

[deleted]

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#108

Post by HeckFeck »

486sx33 wrote: post #42
theogravity wrote: post #26

It's NetZero all over again https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetZero > NetZero's model was free Internet access to attract an audience for highly targeted advertising.

Except with net zero you could just snoop the communications during login between your modem and the host, grab your login and password, then forget about net zeros software, redial the host with your own terminal program, paste in your credentials and boom you were online with no ads to watch :)

The joys of a pre-SSL world.

Re: Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU

#110

Post by michaelmior »

kristopolous wrote: post #5
jerbear4328 wrote: post #2

This seems pretty cool, so it's free slow cell service in exchange for watching a video ad every hour, with optional prepaid plans for higher speeds/no ads. It does seem that your cellular is only active for an hour after you last watch an ad, which is unfortunate if you want to receive notifications throughout the day.

Otherwise people would use it for IoT infrastructure. I certainly would.

I haven't actually made use of this yet, but Google Fi lets you purchase additional data-only SIM cards for $5 or $10 and then the data gets billed at $1/GB at the same rate without any minimum. So if you're only sending a few KB a day, you pay almost nothing.
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