Anyone using an eSIM with a cell phone carrier in Thailand along with a physical SIM card from a U.S. cell service?

[srowndedbyh2o]

I recently set up an Ultramobile PAYGO sim card in my phone while I’m still in the U.S. I was hoping I can leave that sim card in my phone when I’m in Thailand to use for banking 2FA logins on U.S. websites, and get an eSIM through a Thailand based cell phone service to use as my everyday talk, text, and data in Thailand. I’m currently using an unlocked iPhone 11 if that matters.

Or would it be better to just activate the UM Paygo sim while in the U.S., and then buy a cheap cellphone in Thailand and insert the sim in that phone. Again, I just need the physical sim as a backup for 2FA in case any of my banks start to block the google voice numbers I’m currently using for 2FA.

[EVENKEEL]

I have a dual sim card phone, one sim is AIS and one with Ting phone service from USA.

[srowndedbyh2o]

15 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

I have a dual sim card phone, one sim is AIS and one with Ting phone service from USA.

Are one of those using an eSIM?

[srowndedbyh2o]

15 hours ago, Sticky Rice Balls said:

Use AIS as a hotspot mostly to stream on my pc

Dose that use an eSIM?

[Ripx89]

I'm using eSim from Malaysia and physical sim from AIS, Iphone.

But having issue whereby Data always disconnected for a little while and reconnects.

 

By disabling my eSim, AIS connection/Data works fine without issue.

[srowndedbyh2o]

1 hour ago, unknownhammie said:

I'm using eSim from Malaysia and physical sim from AIS, Iphone.

But having issue whereby Data always disconnected for a little while and reconnects.

 

By disabling my eSim, AIS connection/Data works fine without issue.

Thanks for the feedback.

I’ll be setting up my sims just the opposite. I want the eSIM to be a Thailand provider and use as my default, and the physical sim will be a U.S. carrier, mainly used for 2FA messages.

Thanks again.

[mtls2005]

On 5/11/2021 at 8:48 AM, srowndedbyh2o said:

Ultramobile PAYGO

 

Do you plan to use WiFi Calling with UM, or subscribe to an internaitonal roaming option with them?

 

On 5/11/2021 at 8:48 AM, srowndedbyh2o said:

Or would it be better to just activate the UM Paygo sim while in the U.S., and then buy a cheap cellphone in Thailand and insert the sim in that phone.

 

This one.

 

You can tinker with both SIMs in one phone - see if you can get it to work, if not a second phone would work fine.

 

 

 

The UM SIM must be activated in the U.S., they'll be sending you a specific unique URL as an SMS to complete the registration process. A friend in the U.S. activated mine for me - I created the account first, he forwarded the SMS to me in real-time via GV, I clicked on it and was subscribed. That SIM was mailed to me, haven't gotten it yet.

 

 

[sanmyintmaung]

4 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

Thanks for the feedback.

I’ll be setting up my sims just the opposite. I want the eSIM to be a Thailand provider and use as my default, and the physical sim will be a U.S. carrier, mainly used for 2FA messages.

Thanks again.

I am using eSIM from AIS and physical SIM from Myanmar. I use AIS eSIM as my everyday talk, text, and data in Thailand. Physical SIM from Myanmar is use only to receive OTP text messages. I do need to activate international roaming on Physical SIM from Myanmar to receive OTP text messages while roaming in Thailand. 

[srowndedbyh2o]

9 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

Do you plan to use WiFi Calling with UM, or subscribe to an internaitonal roaming option with them?

Wifi only. Just want to stick to the $3/month plan since it's mainly used as a backup to receive 2FA codes.

Quote

The UM SIM must be activated in the U.S.

Oddly, I had to use an old Android phone to activate the sim over wifi, then I put it in an old iPhone 6. Once in Thailand I plan to switch it to an iPhone12 that has eSIM capabilities.

[DFPhuket]

My iPhone X uses my Thai DTAC number as my e-SIM and I have my physical US Ting SIM in the slot. It works fine when I'm in either country. I control whether I want to use one or the other via the system settings. I like the convenience of arriving in either country and having immediate phone/data. 

[srowndedbyh2o]

10 hours ago, sanmyintmaung said:

I do need to activate international roaming on Physical SIM from Myanmar to receive OTP text messages while roaming in Thailand. 

I would like to use the physical sim from the U.S. provider over wifi only. No international roaming. Not really sure how/if that’s going to work.

[srowndedbyh2o]

21 minutes ago, DFPhuket said:

My iPhone X uses my Thai DTAC number as my e-SIM and I have my physical US Ting SIM in the slot. It works fine when I'm in either country. I control whether I want to use one or the other via the system settings.

In the settings, are you able to set the physical Ting sim to use in wifi only? Again, I’m mainly interested in using my physical UMPaygo sim in Thailand to receive 2FA while in wifi mode to avoid roaming charges. Not sue if there is a way to do that in ‘settings’ on the iPhone, or if I just need to place the phone in Airplane mode when using UMPaygo in Thailand.

21 minutes ago, DFPhuket said:

I like the convenience of arriving in either country and having immediate phone/data. 

I hadn’t even thought about that, but we do plan on returning to the U.S. for a short period in 2022. Thanks for the tip!!????

[mtls2005]

5 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

Oddly, I had to use an old Android phone to activate the sim over wifi

I'm surprised that worked. 

 

4 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

I would like to use the physical sim from the U.S. provider over wifi only. No international roaming. Not really sure how/if that’s going to work.

 

After you enable WiFi calling through your UM dashboard, it will work wherever in the world you have WiFi. Your iPhone should support WiFi calling, verify your model/OS rev at the UM website. Whether you can use UM/WiFi and a local Thai eSIM remains to be proven. Seems like it should work but I'm not an iPhone person.

 

4 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

Not sue if there is a way to do that in ‘settings’ on the iPhone, or if I just need to place the phone in Airplane mode when using UMPaygo in Thailand.

 

This is the challenge, obviously.

 

If it doesn't work just get the cheapest Android phone which supports WiFI calling for your UM/2FA application.

 

4 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

I hadn’t even thought about that, but we do plan on returning to the U.S. for a short period in 2022. Thanks for the tip!!

 

Yes, UM does offer add-on data package so would work for reasonable use on return trips. I plan to test that, although I keep an old T-Mo PAYG SIM for this usually.

[sanmyintmaung]

5 hours ago, srowndedbyh2o said:

 

 

I do need to activate international roaming on Physical SIM from Myanmar to receive OTP text messages while roaming in Thailand. 

I would like to use the physical sim from the U.S. provider over wifi only. No international roaming. Not really sure how/if that’s going to work.

If international roaming is disabled, iPhone with US SIM will try to connect to U.S provider using wifi only. You will just need to activate your US SIM for using wifi calling feature before leaving US.

[DFPhuket]

When I'm in Thailand I go to settings and turn off my US eSIM. If I'm expecting a SMS because I'm logging into a US financial account I just turn it for a while. When I'm in the US, I do the opposite and turn of my Thai SIM. 

[mtls2005]

39 minutes ago, sanmyintmaung said:

You will just need to activate your US SIM for using wifi calling feature before leaving US.

 

Not required. This can be enabled/disabled via UM's web dashboard. Can be done from anywhere.

 

29 minutes ago, DFPhuket said:

If I'm expecting a SMS because I'm logging into a US financial account I just turn it for a while.

 

This is with TING, right? Roaming or WiFi?

 

Again...

 

1 hour ago, mtls2005 said:

Whether you can use UM/WiFi and a local Thai eSIM remains to be proven. Seems like it should work but I'm not an iPhone person.

 

 

So, it seems like it should work: UM/WiFi calling (SIM) + Local Thai GSM provider (eSIM).

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

It's kind of interesting, the distinction between the typical mobile phones sold in the US vs those sold in Asia...

 

The US market models with few exceptions are all single SIM, so people like expats here are having to juggle the newer ESIM capabilities in some higher end phones in order to get a second SIM capability on their phones.

 

Whereas, for models intended for the Asia market, they largely come with two physical SIM slots in the manufacturer hardware, so you've already got the same capability built-in. I like using a regular dual SIM model from Asia but making sure it had good band compatibility with the U.S. carrier (TM) that I use.

 

[EVENKEEL]

I bought my android phone in S'pore, has 2 slots - Ting in second slot and AIS Thailand in first slot. When in the USA I reverse sims to have data on my Ting sim. 

 

It matters which slot you're using data on.

[srowndedbyh2o]

19 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

 

On 5/18/2021 at 9:24 AM, srowndedbyh2o said:

Oddly, I had to use an old Android phone to activate the sim over wifi

I'm surprised that worked. 

 

Yes, odd. I originally tried to activate the sim with an old iPhone 6 that I have. It didn't  have a sim card and was used with wifi only. I got caught in a sort of catch 22 in that to activate the UM paygo sim and get a local phone number, I needed to put the sim in the iPhone and send a text to UM with my zip code. But when I tried to send a text with Apple message It would tell me that in order to use the Messages App I first needed to enter the phone number. No number, no text. No text, no number. I then tried the sim in an old Android phone and sent a text with no problem. They activated the sim, and gave my a local phone number. I took the sim out of the Android phone and put it in the old iPhone 6 and it works great!

[srowndedbyh2o]

18 hours ago, sanmyintmaung said:

You will just need to activate your US SIM for using wifi calling feature before leaving US.

Thanks. I have activated wifi calling.

[srowndedbyh2o]

18 hours ago, DFPhuket said:

When I'm in Thailand I go to settings and turn off my US eSIM. If I'm expecting a SMS because I'm logging into a US financial account I just turn it for a while. When I'm in the US, I do the opposite and turn of my Thai SIM. 

Thank you. That’s what I was hoping to do!????

[taxout]

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