Just blew $600 on a 'global' SIM card that barely worked in Thailand

Bought one of those fancy eSIMs advertised for nomads before my trip to Chiang Mai. It promised high speed data in 100+ countries. In reality, the connection dropped constantly, and I lost two client calls in a single week. I ended up buying a local AIS SIM for $15 that worked perfectly. Has anyone found a reliable global data provider that's actually worth the money?

3 comments

3 Comments

derekl7911d ago

My last trip to Japan, I paid for a similar global eSIM that was basically unusable in Tokyo during rush hour. It was the same story, a reseller on the Docomo network that got cut off the second things got busy. I had to find a 7-Eleven and get a local SIM by the third day.

caleb_stone11d ago

Forget the tech, check who actually owns the towers. A lot of those global plans are just resellers renting space from the big local carriers. So you're paying extra to be the lowest priority customer on the same AIS network you could have bought direct. That's why your calls dropped. They get booted first when the network is busy.

rileyellis7d ago

But that convenience is worth something, right? Grabbing a local SIM in a foreign country is a huge hassle if you don't speak the language. You're paying the global plan to skip the line at the airport and have data the second you land. Sometimes saving time and avoiding stress is the whole point of the trip.