GigSky offers short term global cellular LTE data plans and back in September announced support for eSIM and Dual SIM, at the time when Apple announced the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR.
Apple launched Dual SIM and eSIM support with the recent release of iOS 12.1.
These new iPhone models support Dual SIM, meaning you can run two cellular plans at the same time. Instead of having two physical SIM card slots, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR have an eSIM—a digital SIM—available for their primary or secondary line (except in mainland China). Apple’s eSIM is available on cellular iPad and Apple Watch models.
GigSky launched support for eSIM and Dual SIM yesterday and setting up a cellular data plan is incredibly easy and convenient.
Prices for the North America region (Canada, United States, Mexico, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands), are as follows:
The $50/5GB plan is cheaper than paying Canadian data overages, which cost $100/1GB. With Dual SIM, you can set it up so GigSky’s cellular data plan is used for data via eSIM, while your physical SIM card will house your voice plan.
1. Make sure you’ve updated your iPhone to iOS 12.1 (and your iPhone is unlocked; all models sold in Canada are unlocked by law).
Download the GigSky iOS app and create a new account if you don’t have one. Use promo code GNGM100 to get $5 USD credit when signing up (shameless plug btw).
2. Select your destination, then pick a plan to use. Right now, GigSky says 1-day plans are on sale for 50% off for a limited time.
3. At the checkout page, GigSky will recap your order and the best part—the app supports Apple Pay for in-app payments, making this so easy:
4. Next, GigSky will guide you through labeling your new data plan, plus choosing a default line. The custom label is “GigSky Plan 4” as noted below in our case:
5. Just follow the huge blue prompts and agree to add the GigSky cellular plan to your iPhone:
Where it says ‘Cellular Plan Labels’, you can decide what you want for your GigSky plan. In our case, we are keeping our Public Mobile plan as Primary, while setting up the GigSky plan on eSIM as our Secondary label:
6. On the step where it says Default Line, we picked ‘Use GigSky Plan 4 for cellular data only’. This means our Primary line stays in use (Public Mobile), while cellular data will be used from the GigSky plan only.
So if you’re travelling down to the USA, for example, you can still get phone calls to your primary line, but any data use will be from GigSky and eSIM.
When activating, we did encounter a “No network detected” error, but tapping “Retry” fixed the activation problem right away.
Once you’ve setup eSIM on your iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max or iPhone XR, when you visit Control Center, you’ll see two cellular signals—one for your Primary line and your Secondary line. You will now also see two sets of cellular signal bars in the top right.
Below, you can see GigSky setup for cellular data and Public Mobile for our phone calls and messages. The image on the right is a Speedtest.net network speed test, while on GigSky’s roaming partner network in Canada:
GigSky also sends you real-time alerts of your data usage. When we used more than 50% of our plan, we got a push notification “50% or more of the data plan has been used.”
Overall, I can see myself using GigSky for travel to take full advantage of eSIM. Sure, prices may not be as competitive versus popping in a local SIM, but the convenience of setting up eSIM on the device and paying with Apple Pay is just too easy (and for reloads).
As more carriers around the world slowly adopt eSIM, setting up a local plan with Dual SIM will most likely save you money, as you can skip ‘Big 3’ daily roaming plans, which start at $8-10 per day. With a cellular data plan, you’ll be able to use iMessage as normal, along with other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger and more (who talks on the phone anyways).
Let us know if you’re going to give GigSky’s worldwide data plans a try and how your eSIM/Dual SIM setup goes.
Don’t forget to use code GNGM100 when signing up to get your free $5 USD credit. It’s worth buying a GigSky plan to use locally just to test out the eSIM setup experience.
