Motorola Phones Now Have a Built-In Travel e SIM for Mobile Data Outside the US | WIRED

Overview

Motorola Phones Now Have a Built-In Travel e SIM for Mobile Data Outside the US

There’s been an explosion in popularity in recent years for travel e SIMs. This is thanks to how easy e SIMs have become to set up on a phone, and how much more inexpensive their data plans can be when compared to what you’ll pay in international roaming fees.

Details

But Motorola is now making it even more hassle-free by building a native travel e SIM experience into its smartphones.

Travel e SIMs give travelers an easy way to instantly access a data-only e SIM that works in their destination—even before hopping on a flight. It means you don't have to stop by a SIM card kiosk at the airport and fuss with physical SIM cards to connect to the internet at your destination. You can top up your data allotment through an app and pay as you go. These e SIMs often don't include the ability to make calls and send texts, and that's the case here with Motorola's solution. (Thankfully, Whats App is widely adopted in tourist destinations.)

The service is powered by Gigs, a San Francisco firm that helps companies sell mobile data plans without having to deal with complex telecom negotiations and contracts. It's the same company behind the mobile plans from Klarna, the buy-now-and-pay-later service, and more recently, Cash App. Motorola says it worked closely with Gigs to make the experience feel like a “Motorola-branded experience” and not a third-party add-on.

While Motorola claims this is the first time a major smartphone manufacturer has embedded a travel e SIM function natively into its phones, Chinese phone maker Xiaomi offered a similar virtual travel SIM function as far back as 2015, though it has since discontinued the feature.

Sudhir Chadaga, vice president for Partnerships at Motorola, says customers have to install the Global Connect app, create a Gigs account, and they'll get 1 GB for free with their first travel e SIM (available for a limited time), after which they can top up data as needed. Chadaga claims the rates are competitive—

3 for 1 GB for 30 days, up to

14 for 20 GB—and service is available in more than 160 countries. You can continue to use this same travel e SIM for all your travels.

“What we're trying to do for our consumers is solve that friction point of getting that travel e SIM quickly on the device as they're heading out to travel," Chadaga tells WIRED. "With Global Connect, that's exactly what we're bringing to our users.”

Travel e SIMs are far cheaper than paying for data while roaming, which is what you’re doing when you rely on your primary carrier to connect you to networks in other countries. Siddhant Cally, a senior analyst on the Networks and Connectivity team at Counterpoint Research, says that in some regions, legacy network operators were offering roaming for half the data but at double the price of travel e SIMs.

The cheaper rates, paired with how easy it is to download and save a travel e SIM on your phone before your trip, have made them incredibly popular. And since you can still use data to make Whats App or Face Time calls or send messages, the limitation of not being able to send or receive text messages or calls from your own number isn't a big concern. It's why US carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T have tried to counter the challenge of third-party travel e SIM apps to their roaming business with their own travel e SIM options for people entering the US during the World Cup.

Another reason for the growth in adoption is that more phones than ever before now offer e SIM functionality. In the US, Apple has been selling e SIM-only i Phones since 2022; Motorola's entire range, from budget to flagship, supports e SIMs; Google's latest Pixel 10 series are e SIM-only. Cally says adoption is still slow in Asian countries, where e SIM hasn't trickled down as quickly to budget devices, but that won't be the case for long.

Cally says the market is saturated with thousands of travel e SIM options, from Airalo to Nomad to Holafly. That's why the next battleground is all about how companies can become the first in line of a traveler's journey. Some Visa card tiers, travel packages, and even airlines now offer a free travel e SIM, but “nothing gets closer to the first touchpoint than a built-in stock app,” Cally says. He adds that this doesn't guarantee success, as people will still search for a cheaper plan or service that best suits their destination.

One reason Motorola may not be launching the service in the US yet, Cally believes, is that the US is primarily a postpaid market, with consumers preferring to rely on their primary mobile network operator, like T-Mobile, Verizon, or AT&T. Folks in other countries may be more open to experimenting and finding the best travel e SIM option.

Whether we'll see other phone makers follow suit is unclear. Cally says Motorola's partnership with Gigs is “disruptive and novel,” but it's not something that will entice people to switch to a Motorola phone or stay with the brand.

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Key Takeaways

Motorola Phones Now Have a Built-In Travel e SIM for Mobile Data Outside the US
There’s been an explosion in popularity in recent years for travel e SIMs
But Motorola is now making it even more hassle-free by building a native travel e SIM experience into its smartphones
Travel e SIMs give travelers an easy way to instantly access a data-only e SIM that works in their destination—even before hopping on a flight
The service is powered by Gigs, a San Francisco firm that helps companies sell mobile data plans without having to deal with complex telecom negotiations and contracts