eSIM for Data with Public Mobile Talk & Text plan ad on in USA

[Saratoga]

I have an iPhone 13. My intent is to purchase a Talk & Text US roaming ad-on from Public Mobile & to combine that with an eSIM plan from either Nomad or Airalo eSIM. The eSIM is data only so I don’t believe there will be a second phone number associated with the eSIM. I’m trying to determine if iMessage will function properly since I believe it needs a data connection to function. I need to be able to continue using my Canadian number for communications while in the US so do not want to purchase an eSIM with a new number for the trip.

Has anyone tried this and what has been your experience?

Have there been issues using iMessage for communication - specifically, if someone sends me a text to my public mobile cell number from Canada using iMessage, will I receive it?

Will existing iMessage conversations continue to work if I send a new message within an existing conversation when in the US?

Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

[darlicious]

@Saratoga 

They haven't changed the 24 hour wait time since US Roaming add ons were first offered so I don't see it getting fixed anytime soon. During that 24 hour transition time period you will still be able to recieve SMS texts. With data from your esim using textnow for outgoing texts and calls is also an option.

Now that you are aware of this limitation in future if you make a note of the time you purchased the original US Roaming add on you can preload the funds onto your account and contact customer support a couple of hours ahead of the expiry time. Pre-verify your account (Full name, address, phone #, email and 4 digit account pin #) and ask the CSA to add second US Roaming add on bundle once the first one expires. If it expires during regular business hours the transition will be nearly seamless if the CSA has all the info required to add the bundle within 5 to 10 minutes of the first one expiring.

[softech]

@Saratoga   you are welcome  🙂

And happy that you are back on

For the system fix, don't put too much faith for a quick fix  🙂

[Saratoga]

I’m back up & running with my next 15 day Talk/Text US Roaming ad-on now. It took about an hour after I submitted my private ticket to public mobile support using the link below. I was down for a total of about 2.5 hrs as I spent the first hour or so trying to figure out why the ad-on option had magically disappeared at precisely the time I needed to repurchase it 🙄. I tried to use the Chatbot approach to submit a ticket but I seemed to get caught in an endless circle with no escape … so I used the link that was provided to me by the community (from “softech” … thank you!). I’ve reposted the link here … it got me directly in contact with support & they were very prompt in engaging to resolve the issue. Hopefully, the technical glitch is resolved to make this process unnecessary for those in the future.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

[Saratoga]

A quick update to this thread.

I purchased the Airalo e-SIM data only plan & it has been excellent. I have 10GB of roaming data in the US for 30 days for a cost of $22 USD at 5G speeds. I combined this with the 15 day Talk/Text US roaming ad-on…. Which works great … until it expires & you try to renew it for another 15 days. I had no idea that there’s a 12-24hr delay from the point that the ad-on expires to when the option to purchase another 15 day ad-on shows up again in your ad-on options. The only workaround appears to be to submit a ticket to public mobile support to have them manually re-purchase the ad-on for you … or you have to be without talk/text coverage for a day until it magically re-appears. WhatsApp is an option in the interim since it leverages the data plan from Airalo. Also of note, you do not get another number assigned by Airalo when purchasing the eSIM … it’s a data only plan. iMessage has been working great but it stopped working when the 15 day public mobile ad-on expired forcing me to send messages as SMS text until I could get the next 15 day ad-on purchased. I highly recommend going with an eSIM on your next trip & Airalo seems to be working great in the USA. Still waiting to get the next 15 day ad-on activated by a public mobile support agent - will reply here with the total time it takes once it’s reactivated so that others can plan for the approximate downtime. 

[CountyDownIeUk]

Sorry, I cannot help. 

[Saratoga]

Thanks for the help. Ok I’ll plan to go with the eSIM for data with the Talk & Text add-on from Public Mobile and will see how things go. I’m sure it won’t take long to find out if there are issues. 

[darlicious]

@Saratoga 

To the best of my understanding your iMessage will stay in a queue until you connect to wifi and then they will all come flooding into your phone.

[darlicious]

@Saratoga 

Your ability to use your pm voice services while Roaming in the US is dependent on the availability of T-Mobile's 2G network. Since you already plan on getting an e-sim for data usage you may want to instead download textnow and choose a Canadian phone #. Before you leave Canada call forward your pm phone # to your textnow #. Set your network mode to 4G LTE only so your phone does not try to connect to the 2G network (and erase you call forwarding back to the voicemail default). You will recieve incoming pm texts and your incoming pm calls will ring thru to your textnow number. You can use textnow for outgoing calls and SMS/MMS texts. You can use your apple services using the e-sim data as well as textnow when away from wifi. No pm US Roaming add ons needed unless for some reason your call forwarding defaults back to voicemail then you could add the talk+text US Roaming add on but you will need to remember to set your network mode back to the autoconnect setting.

I'm not sure how the iPhone settings work in dual sim mode but you should be able to choose to use iMessage on the esim and leave the pm sim set to send/recieve SMS/MMS (even though you won't be sending). However @BKNS27 , @AE_Collector or @CountyDownIeUk may be able to shed further light on this since they use Apple products.

[Saratoga]

Thanks for the quick replies. 

I’m assuming I can still use iMessage if I send the messages as SMS text. But I wasn’t sure if I would receive a message sent as an “iMessage” from Canada to my PM number if I don’t have a US data roaming package from public mobile. I’m not clear how the message routing takes place. I’m guessing I would receive messages sent when I have WiFi connectivity. But I’m not clear how resilient an iMessage is once it’s sent … i.e. if I’m not on WiFi when it’s sent to my PM number, does it get lost in internet oblivion with no indication to the sender that it didn’t go through.

[dust2dust]

Why do I continue to have such a hate-on for Apple products? hmmm It's a mystery. Time and time again we get people not understanding how an iphone demands the internet unless otherwise configured. It continues to astound me.

[hTideGnow]

Hi @Saratoga 

To clarify, it will work because iMessage actually send to Apple ID.   just that at the moment, your Apple ID is also linked up to your PM phone  number.  but again, you will receive those iMessage when you are overseas

[computergeek541]

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@Saratoga wrote:

I have an iPhone 13. My intent is to purchase a Talk & Text US roaming ad-on from Public Mobile & to combine that with an eSIM plan from either Nomad or Airalo eSIM. The eSIM is data only so I don’t believe there will be a second phone number associated with the eSIM. I’m trying to determine if iMessage will function properly since I believe it needs a data connection to function. I need to be able to continue using my Canadian number for communications while in the US so do not want to purchase an eSIM with a new number for the trip.

Has anyone tried this and what has been your experience?

Have there been issues using iMessage for communication - specifically, if someone sends me a text to my public mobile cell number from Canada using iMessage, will I receive it?

Will existing iMessage conversations continue to work if I send a new message within an existing conversation when in the US?

Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

---

Even if you do not purcahse a U.S. roaming add-on, you will still receive your incoming text messages (on your PUblic Mobile service), but only if you disable iMessage.  In theory, you should be able to use iMessage using service from another cell carrier, but this would be dependent on if Apple uses any type of secuity verification due to using a different carrier/internet provider.  I would assume that such a 2FA verification would be done by text messaging.

[hTideGnow]

HI @Saratoga   the eSIM , even with data only,  should have a mobile number tied to it.  But it won't affect your PM number or iMessage

as long as the data works, you will get iMessage that people send you to your PM phone number.  Just like you will get iMessage when you are on Wifi