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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

#191

Post by jerbear4328 »

chaboud wrote: post #174
logifail wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cohort Venn diagram is world travelers who can’t afford a global service? People who can pay for a flight but would rather watch an ad than pay for service? At this point I laughed, as I don't have global service, yet have flown round the world in the last fortnight. > And the value of that ad inventory of people unwilling to pay is? Yeah, I'm never going to click on your ads. Don't build a business model on me…

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think it’s nonzero. I just don’t know if it’s enough to overcome the tonnage cost (bulk rate for IOT/B2B cellular), and the business development challenges for global cellular and advertising are no joke when we’re down to a freemium-ad-supported revenue model. Striking at the eSIM moment is a slick move, though. This would likely have been a hard non-starter in the physical SIM era (which…

Isn't physical SIM cards like what TextNow is doing? https://www.textnow.com/wireless

You can buy a SIM for $5 and get a free phone number that you can only use in their app, which has ads. I know plenty of people who that service could be very useful for, $5 one-time for unlimited text/talk, if inconvenient.

I do think that using Firsty and Google Voice together could accomplish the same thing for free, except Firsty's unlock-for-an-hour model means you can't receive messages when you haven't watched an ad in the last hour, so maybe TextNow still has some use.

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

#192

Post by ac29 »

daveoc64 wrote: post #121
Jhsto wrote: post #51

I feel like the best mobile plan insofar for traveling has been Google Fi: $10/GB anywhere in the world, allows you to pause service and pay nothing, works both as a physical and eSIM card. The downside: only available for purchase in the US.

By international standards, Google Fi is expensive. By US standards, Google Fi is cheap.

> By US standards, Google Fi is cheap.

Not any more. I pay $25/month for unlimited text/voice/data service in the US, and there are quite a few providers that are even cheaper.

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

#193

Post by thomastjeffery »

jerbear4328 wrote: post #189
thomastjeffery wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It might target people who can't afford cell service, but I don't see how that's taking advantage of them. Maybe it's profiting off them, but nobody has to use it. If it isn't worth it to you, then don't use it, but if it is, then do, and that's better than if it didn't exist. Nobody is forcing you to use the app, though. What do you mean by infrastructure cost not being important? They either take a loss on the free…

It's about backing people into a corner who don't have the means to choose an alternative situation. No one is forcing you to have cell service? Sure they are! Good luck participating in society without it.

As for infrastructure costs, that's the entire service. How much does it really cost to provide 300kbit/s? Surely less than it costs to serve ads! Sure, you can turn a profit from the ad revenue, but that means your profit is the end user's attention.

My overall point is that we should not call ads "free". Watching ads is labor, and labor ain't free.

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

#194

Post by ossguy »

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.

Does it show eSIM providers that explicitly do not provide phone numbers? In particular, ones whose eSIM does not list any phone number that the OS can see (many "data-only" plans still have a phone number the OS can see/use).

The closest I found on eSIMDB was a "Hide data only plans (no Voice / SMS)" option, but that's sort of the opposite. I'd like to see "Hide plans that have a phone number" for example.

Mainly I ask because Apple-using friends of mine have told me that it's impossible to remove (e)SIM phone numbers from the iMessage database. There is apparently no setting to use to prevent Apple from making a (e)SIM phone number an option for iMessage, so it's important to have (e)SIMs that provide no phone number at all, to ensure that iMessage can't get confused about which identifiers the user actually wants available.

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

#195

Post by joecool1029 »

kotaKat wrote: post #173
YoumuChan wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is just an standard eUICC card with an issuer certificate, which means you need issuer's app to access low-level eUICC functions on a rootless Android. This is how esim.me enforces the subscription. This also means, you can use any LPA implementation to manage and install profiles on your own! Some examples: https://github.com/Truphone/LPAdesktop Needs a smart card reader and a pc to work https://github.com/estkme…

What eUICC physical cards are people grabbing for this?

I can confirm esim.me works for it, it's just expensive for one of them. This service does not require an IMEI pairing to the EID because at least in the US it's using T-Mobile (at&t has a device whitelist and verizon requires a valid IMEI/EID in their database).

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

#196

Post by joecool1029 »

YoumuChan wrote: post #144
kotaKat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw this in as well -- https://esim.me/ It's not an "eSIM" per se, but it's a physical SIM card that has the eSIM module onboard. This lets your physical devices use eSIM providers. One weird thing they do though is a strange licensing model where you can buy the physical card locked to one specific phone, one specific brand of phones, or any phone, plus a set number of eSIM slots. The Omni/15 is the "best" of…

It is just an standard eUICC card with an issuer certificate, which means you need issuer's app to access low-level eUICC functions on a rootless Android. This is how esim.me enforces the subscription. This also means, you can use any LPA implementation to manage and install profiles on your own! Some examples: https://github.com/Truphone/LPAdesktop Needs a smart card reader and a pc to work https://github.com/estkme…

> https://gitea.angry.im/PeterCxy/OpenEUICC Needs a root on Android

It usually needs to be priv-app installed, which means you have to build it in with the rom or add it with a Magisk module (don't use the one on github though it's horribly out of date, if you must... make sure your device is in light theme mode or you won't see the QR code and confirm buttons).

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

#197

Post by 4ad »

dataflow wrote: post #162
4ad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 websi…

How do you tell if an eSIM has LBO? Also, is this specific to eSIM somehow? Shouldn't physical SIM behave the same?

Physical SIMs behave the same, but most people use SIM cards from specific countries rather than global SIMs, which are a niche business product not oriented towards consumers.

When you use a local SIM card you (almost?) never get LBO. Note that sometimes this is a feature, e.g. you can sometimes get internet in China this way.

The point, however, of eSIMs is to be "better" than your home SIM.

eSIMs usually offer a better price than your home SIM (while travelling), but they rarely offer better performance. In fact they often offer worse performance, because they often have a single POP in some weird country that is further way than your home country.

Global SIM providers, both physical SIM and eSIM have more POPs, often in the country you are travelling, or at least closer to it than your home country. Until recently these providers were out of reach of most people, since they did not sell directly to consumers, but now some of them offer eSIM, albeit at a higher price than the competition.

To answer your question though, unless the eSIM provider tells you under which conditions it has LBO, you can't know except experimentally, but that test has to be done from a specific location. They might have LBO only from some countries or from some network. For example, now I am in Austria and Truphone seems to be routing through Germany, which technically is not local, but it's still far closer than Israel or New Zealand (!!) that some cheap eSIM providers go through. bne seems to route directly through Austria though, beating Truphone in latency and even beating my local SIM in latency.

The good news is that many resellers cheaper than Truphone are actually using Truphone's backbone, but unfortunately they don't advertise than making it really hard to shop around without burning money for tests.

YMMV though.

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

#198

Post by riedel »

kotaKat wrote: post #129
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.

I'll throw this in as well -- https://esim.me/ It's not an "eSIM" per se, but it's a physical SIM card that has the eSIM module onboard. This lets your physical devices use eSIM providers. One weird thing they do though is a strange licensing model where you can buy the physical card locked to one specific phone, one specific brand of phones, or any phone, plus a set number of eSIM slots. The Omni/15 is the "best" of…

Unfortunately it does not work with firsty, but it works like a charm with arbitrary esims while travelling. I last used it in Japan but also sometimes across Europe if I need extra data. I am super happy. Also with their support!

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

#199

Post by AlexAndScripts »

4ad wrote: post #152
AlexAndScripts wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is local breakout?

It means routing data to the Internet directly through the network the user is using rather than going to the operator's network. When normal roaming, even though you use some local network, all the trafic gets tunnelled out from the local network to your own network provider, to the internet, and then back. So if you're from, say, France, and you visit Australia, all your traffic gets tunned back and forth to France…

Thanks for the explanation, that's really useful. I'll keep it in mind when travelling.

I'm curious, why Israel and Poland? Are a lot of eSIM providers from there?

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

#200

Post by schrmh »

joecool1029 wrote: post #195
kotaKat wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What eUICC physical cards are people grabbing for this?

I can confirm esim.me works for it, it's just expensive for one of them. This service does not require an IMEI pairing to the EID because at least in the US it's using T-Mobile (at&t has a device whitelist and verizon requires a valid IMEI/EID in their database).

That's interesting cause on a a bigger german website we are trying to figure out how to get that firsty thing working with removable eUICCs since Feb the 16th. The only person that reported there that eSIM.me is working for them used a smartphone with a built-in eUICC for "looking at the app and receiving activation code" and after that put in the eSIM.me into a Galaxy S10.

Everybody else that wrote something about working or not working — no matter if they use products from eSIM.me, 5ber or sysmocom — wrote that it isn't working for them. Even when installing the profile with the static activation code from within the APK — that can be found when using apktool on the APK and a bit of grep — I wasn't able to get a data connection with the profile deployed to the sysmoEUICC1-C2G. Btw. firsty seems to use Vodafone here.

However, firsty support answered today that they "are looking into support for these use cases, so stay tuned!"

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