Tired of Roaming Cellular Data Costs? Introducing Soracom Mobile!
Written by: Cody Lirette
Published: March 5, 2020
That’s right! We’re pleased to be announcing Soracom Mobile, an eSIM data plan for iPhone and iPad users that travel overseas and don’t want to pay roaming costs.
Our Story
We’ve always made it our mission to connect people and things around the world. So far, we have built 16 exciting cellular IoT products to accomplish this goal including SORACOM Air, which over time has evolved to include 2G, 3G, LTE, LTE-M and LPWA including SigFox.
Soracom IoT SIM cards can be used in over 130 countries across 240 carriers globally. We’re always looking to build our products to answer specific customer needs, which is why we started to offer upload-only SIM cards that include 50GB of data built for video and image analysis.
In 2017, we took it to the next level by supporting eSIM technology – IoT SIM cards that are embedded in devices. Many of our customers use eSIMs in their products including the Pocketalk S by Sourcenext.
eSIMs are a relatively new technology but they’re picking up in popularity. In 2018, iPhone XS supported dual SIM meaning that it can use both a traditional physical nano-SIM and eSIM.
Just last year, we established a mechanism to digitally write Soracom profiles to an eSIM and started offering it an eSIM profile installation service through some partners.
If you successfully install an eSIM profile, you can use both the main SIM line and the sub eSIM line. For instance you can use the traditional SIM for local phone calls and the eSIM for when you need data traveling abroad.
Introducing Soracom Mobile
As we mentioned, Soracom Mobile allows iPhone and iPad users to purchase an overseas data plan on your phone that you can use when traveling abroad to pay local data costs.
Selecting a plan, creating an account, paying and installing an eSIM profile on your eSIM can also be done via the Soracom Mobile app. Payments are easy to set up and can be done using Apple Pay and credit card and best of all, you can write directly to the iPhone eSIM using the app meaning there’s no need to tinker with the phone’s mobile roaming and APN settings.
Pricing
We’re currently offering three 30-day pricing plans for Soracom Mobile:
Soracom Mobile will be incredibly valuable for individuals to use as a secondary line when they travel abroad.
Some purchase physical SIM cards at the airport when they’re traveling abroad but one of the worries is removing and inserting the new SIM card – not to mention the steep cost! Plus, the line at the kiosk can be incredibly busy, resulting in less free time with the family or late business lunches.
Soracom Mobile currently supports the following iOS devices:
- iPhone 11
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone XR
- iPhone XS
- iPhone XS Max
- iPad WiFi + Cellular
- iPad Pro WiFi + Cellular
- iPad Air WiFi + Cellular
- iPad Mini WiFi + Cellular
eSIM technology is steadily growing in popularity so we expect that the number of compatible devices will increase quickly.
Time to Try it Out!
The global number of devices with built-in eSIMs is expected to exceed 2 billion by 2025, and will continue to expand.
At Soracom, we’re trying to make eSIM technology as accessible and easy to use as possible for consumers with our new Soracom Mobile platform. As our first consumer service, this is a unique challenge for us but as always, we will make use of feedback from our customers and improve on the end product.
With this new development, we’re thrilled that we’ll be able to start connecting people around the world as well as IoT devices.
Be sure to download the Soracom Mobile app from the Apple Store and try it out! As always, we value your experience so please send us some feedback about how the new service feels!
