Posted 13 November 2023

iPhone eSim options - is it worth buying a 24 month valid 3 Mobile 24GB data sim for £35?

I have a new iPhone and I can see it holds up to six eSims. My average data usage per month is only 5GB. I have a cheap SIMO deal with Vodafone although I live in a patchy spot with data signals.

I did mull quite a bit with which network to opt for and I went with Vodafone.

I was wondering however whether it might make sense buying a 24 month valid 3 data only sim for £35 and using it as an eSim. I could set my iPhone up to prioritise Vodafone however if it hit a dead zone I could try to use 3 Mobile as back up network.

At £35 for 24 months, it would work out as £1.45 per month and I doubt I would use much if that effective 1GB/m data. Plus if I go abroad, I can use up to 12GB of that as roaming cost free. With Vodafone I'd have to pay £15 for 15 days use which would be 1/3rd the cost of the 24 month 3 Sim.

Essentially I'm talking about a quality of life improvement for data services for what should be £1.45 per month if I can get this as an eSim.

What say the wiser owls of HUKD?

Edit: I dont think data sims can be eSims but my current contract with Vodafone as gone eSim and I could use the sole physical sim tray for the data sim.

Also Vodafone would charge me £15 to use my data abroad in Spain for 2 weeks. 3 Mobile would not charge anything so, essentially for £20 I could have 2yrs of 3 data as a backup when I hit a vodafone deadzone
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  1. Tuta's avatar
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    FrugalFergal's avatar
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    Ive only just got an iPhone (1st time in 10yrs hence why all the new technology is something I'm playing around with). Vodafone turned my regular sim into an eSim yesterday so now the sim tray is free and within the options I could see that you can configure each sim use differently. For example, I could use vodafone as my primary call/data sim however if I enter a data dead zone it would try to fall back on the back up 3 Sim. I had no dead zones with 3 mobile in my area of London but its patchy on the vodafone network but then I have the reverse outside London. With the eSims we now have the option of having multiple networks.

    My contract with Vodafone is finished so they offered me a SIMO deal for £8/month for 20GB of data (unlimited calls/texts). For £1.45 more I'd have the back up of 3. I only use 5GB/data per month on Vodafone over the last 2yrs. I do have annoying data dead zones around. The idea is that the phone itself costs £1200. The Vodafone contract is £8/month but for what is very little more I'd get the benefit of the 3 network operating seamlessly when needed.

    Im off to Spain this weekend and Vodafone will charge me £15 to use my data for 2 weeks. Knocking that off the 3 Sim brings it down to £20 for a 24 month period.

    Yes, 3 and Vodafone are set to merge but its not happened yet so I'd lose the benefits of a seperate 3 network (or more accurately everyone else will benefit from both). I did try to find an EE/O2 data sim but I cant find anything that offers in the region of 24 months for such a low price. EE do a 120GB data sim over 12 months for £50 but that's overkill for me and it works out at £4.16/month which isnt a lot but well above the 83p/month (after just one trip to Spain) for the 3 deal. The 3 option seems like worth a punt at that price.

    The other data sim options seem to be limited to 30 days which is no good to me because they are relatively so expensive and offer far more data than I will realistically use. The other option is to take out a super cheap contract with another provider but there is very little available for £5 per month or less that offers meaningful amount of data to be off use.

    In my case scenario, I used to have 200GB of data allowed of which I used 2-5GB/month of data over the 24 month contract. Now for £8/m Vodafone are offering me 20GB of data or 40GB of data for £10/m. However with the 3 Sim I would have 20GB + 1GB for less than £9/month which would be far more useful to me than an enormous data allowance on the same network for a little more.

    Ultimately Im quite fascinated about the quality of life improvements having seamless access to multiple networks but its got to be at a price that's low enough to be worth a punt. (edited)
  2. Ferris's avatar
    I'm confused. How is 24gb across 24 months effectively 2gb/month?
    FrugalFergal's avatar
    Author
    Sorry I mean 1GB/month lol
  3. one_eight_seven's avatar
    I don’t think you can get an eSIM on a non-contract SIM but someone can correct me if that is not the case.

    Edit: it may be possible by taking a 30 day SIM only then cancelling to keep the number active but how would the data plan be moved over? (edited)
    FrugalFergal's avatar
    Author
    I was hoping to have this as an eSim but I think they only do actual sims which is annoying. I guess with an iPhone you can have your contract number as an eSim but the data sim would have to take up the physical tray of which you only have one of. In any case its not the worst solution.

    The other option I'd look at is the cheapest possible data contract with a MVNO but even those are not cheap. Potentially you could have all the carriers with six eSims
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