u/Liten_mus

TL;DR - let me turn off roaming to save money for USM and allow backup calling on local ESIMs.

Or in long form..

I would like to be able to turn off international roaming in the app or website. Save USM from paying roaming fees and allow me to use “backup calling” for my USM connection.

Why? Because I don’t need it when traveling somewhere a local eSIM provides faster, cheap, local data. I would like to have my USM line running over “backup calling” across the local eSIM. Backup calling works perfectly on my iPhone wherever I can find a way to prevent USM from connecting to a local network.

And why do I care? First, why waste USM’s money? Second, USMobile has no clear statement of how much roaming unlimited premium accounts have. AI response to the question claims 90 days or “excessive usage”. But I cannot find a clear statement in the USM T&Cs. Before I joined I asked and was told no limits by a USM rep but a month or two afterward Reddit started talking about there being limits.

All I want is my voice and SMS for 2FA most of the time. Mostly 2FA SMS. Right now in Turkey I happen to want data as local SIMs are not cheap, but in 3 weeks I will be in the EU where local ones are cheap & fast, and I will want backup calling. Some months afterward I will be in Albania where I will want 3 weeks of roaming service.

What is also unclear is what USM cares about. If I roam and only use voice & SMS but not data? Or maybe it is the weirdly limited voice minutes and SMS that costs them money?

Please don’t tell me backup calling doesn’t work reliably. It works perfectly on iPhones. I have used it for years without problem whenever possible. Everyone claiming otherwise has had bad Android experiences.

My warp and lightspeed lines roam well on my iPhone on every carrier in Turkey. But what I really would like is the ability in the app to turn roaming off, and do backup calling for the Warp number.

Unfortunately Warp roams on every network available. I can turn off data roaming on the eSIM which solves the problem of possibly making USM annoyed by roaming & using roaming data for too long. But it would be better if USM, like Tello, allowed you to turn off roaming entirely..

I am roaming in Canada on unlimited premium with a iPhone 16. Here the problem is obvious, but I fear it may pop up elsewhere in my travels.

If I want to use backup calling on a data or local eSIM I’ve been told by USM to pick a network where Warp(for example) won’t roam. But unfortunately it roams to all available Canadian networks.

I would like to fix this with a toggle in the app that says “don’t roam”. Then if I have fast local data warp will just run using backup calling over the local eSIM.

iPhones don’t themselves have the ability to say “don’t roam”, just the ability to turn off data roaming.

I am traveling and my voice/sms/data is working fine. I would like to keep track of what USMobile and the roaming partners think I have used. I can’t find this anywhere on the app or website, but perhaps I am looking the wrong places.

I am keeping track of what the iPhone thinks it is using, of course..

Update: indeed there is a tab in the app. As a bonus it even matches what my phone thinks…

My tello eSIM works great in Canada. Only connects as LTE, though. Which isn't a problem as it is for voice and SMS and very low data rates.

I am in Ottawa with my iPhone 16 pro and with lightspeed as main and warp as multi-network. Unlimited premium plan. Roaming was the same across the river in Quebec. Lightspeed default roams on TELUS with 5G & LTE. Warp default roams on a network I've never heard of called Videotron, with only LTE service. Warp allows manually selecting TELUS or Rogers and only gets LTE or manually selecting Bell and getting 5G & LTE.