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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

#131

Post by deeth_starr_v »

miki123211 wrote: post #54
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.

I wonder how this works, if your cellular gets deactivated, how do you inform the service that you've watched the ad? Particularly if all you have is an app with no access to low-level system APIs like USSD, texting etc. Is it just disabling your access except to a particular IP range and then enabling it back on receiving a HTTP request? Can routing in Telcos even work like that? Or is it DNS perhaps? That would see…

All your traffic routes through the cell to their gateway. The gateway has session info and can pass/block traffic

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

#132

Post by shellfishgene »

phh wrote: post #47
doix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish the prices were even remotely competitive, every time I check and compare, it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I just checked Morocco, and it's $31.50 for 5GB. I think I paid 7$ for 20GB or something. Then again, I have a phone with a regular SIM card. Maybe the prices are comparable if you have a new iPhone with no regular SIM slot and are forced to use an eSIM. In my mind, eSims sh…

> it's always _significantly cheaper_ to just get a SIM locally. I have the feeling that this will forever be true. Local SIM usually expect that people don't use their whole quota, while eSIM will

Isn't it also necessarily true because the eSIM companies only resell bandwidth from the local telcos who actually own the network? Why would they let a third company undercut their prices...

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

#133

Post by 4ad »

tamirzb wrote: post #53

People here seem to quickly react by recommending their favorite travel eSIM provider. I'd propose what I find to be a bit more useful, a website that compares a bunch of different travel eSIM providers: https://esimdb.com No affiliation from my side. I find it nice to know I always have many options.

Most eSIM providers are just resellers, what I care about a travel eSIM is:

1. is it a reseller, if yes, from whom?

2. does it have local breakout in the target country?

3. what network does it use in the target country?

4. is it data-only?

5. does it allow tethering?

6. can I pay with Apple Pay?

7. can I use it without an account?

Very, very few eSIM services fulfil the second criteria above, and no comparison website I know off lists all the others.

Without LBO, an eSIM is worthless to me. Thus far, I have only found Truphone and bne to have LBO (at least where I travel to). I would love to hear about more options. No LBO no buy!

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

#134

Post by daveloyall »

terinjokes wrote: post #120
kmu526 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Juno was great. There was another company similar to Juno with the same idea which I think started with an "N" if I remember correctly. My dialup of choice was MetConnect. It was entirely free and fast no ads just dial in and use the Internet.

NetZero, who eventually bought Juno after they went under in the dot-com bubble.

I set up a local BBS-like system and used the real NetZero* dialer to call it and attempt to log in. Then I changed my password and repeated the process several times.

That gave me the key to the Caesar cipher they used for the password.. so I could create a fresh account with a scrambled password any time I wanted.

At runtime, in the OS-provided ad-free dialer, I'd use the unscrambled password.

I also pre-created some accounts with unscrambled passwords like "apple" and "bicycle" to share with friends.

NetZero* ceased operations mere weeks after I started this.. Hm.

(* Was it NetZero specifically, or some clone? I forget..)

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

#135

Post by landgenoot »

progbits wrote: post #85
kristopolous wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

nrf9160

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

#136

Post by thomastjeffery »

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.

That's not what free means.

It's cool until you realize that it only exists to take advantage of poor people.

If the infrastructure cost was actually important, then they wouldn't serve ads in the first place.

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

#138

Post by smileybarry »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #27

For travelers’ eSIM (paid), many people whom I asked, have recommended Airalo - https://www.airalo.com I have no affiliation.

I have friends who happily use Airalo but I can't bear the latency & slowness that their routing adds.

You're basically "roaming" on the local carrier, and your APN route you through an Airalo server. Which seems reasonable, except the server is some random OVH VPS with all the downsides of a noisy-neighbor cloud environment, and it's sometimes even all the way in the US. (Not to mention your geo IP is wrong and region-locked websites fail to load unless you find some local free WiFi. Netflix is also wonky thanks to that.)

That's fine for some countries, but in my experience, roaming with my home carrier was somehow faster & more responsive (despite the APN being all the way in Israel).

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

#139

Post by gooseyman »

devmor wrote: post #125
michaelmior wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does the price for 1GB apply if you use only 50kb of data during the billing period or is it prorated?

I had fi for several years. IIRC it was billed as $.01 per megabyte. If I used 341MB, my bill was $3.41.

I think you would still pay for the full MB though.

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

#140

Post by solarkraft »

> Firsty's connectivity services are currently available in Europe, the USA, Turkey and Switzerland. We are actively working to expand our coverage and aim to offer global connectivity as of March 25th, 2024.

So the marketing claims are aspirational.

I still think it's a fascinating business. There must be a lot of number crunching going on regarding ad view rates and the most popular tourist destinations.

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