eSim question

[Shawn75]

Hello dear all, have a question regarding esim. My friend just came to Canada for a 3-week vacation and she needs a plan for the time being here. Her phone is iphone 12 and she will keep her current phone plan as she will go back to China after her vacation. So if she is buying esim from Public Mobile, can she keep her current phone plan while using Public Mobile's plan in the meantime?

Thank you all for your help.

Shawn

[Shawn75]

yeah. for sure .  Thanks again for all your help.

[Rastin]

Also get her to check and see if her phone is locked to a provider if it is she may not be able to use her phone. As her phone comes from China she should check and make sure it will work on a Canadian network. Don't know if there network the same as ours

[Shawn75]

Thank you Rastin! that is a really valuable idea! getting a physical sim from PC mobile would work too as she is only here for a few week! and probably it will save her time if sth goes wrong when setting up esim !

[Rastin]

I don't know about esim but I would just pickup a sim card and put hers away for now. Since she only here for a few weeks I would recommend getting one from another provider like maybe pc mobile as there a problem with text messaging for new customers and you be wasting days getting it fixed since she only here for a few weeks it would just be a waste of her time. if she was staying longer public would be fine but why go through the hassle for a few weeks

[Shawn75]

Amazing! we will try to install the esim on her phone tonite and see how it goes. We will take out her existing physical sim while setting up.  Thanks again for all your help and I will share the experience. 

[softech]

@Shawn75  yes, the beauty for esim is people can easily disable it and use another one (esim or physical) one as the active and primary one

In face, when she does back to China, she can even delete the Pubic Mobile esim and set the China sim active and Primary

and a reminder, since she is here just for vacation, make sure she login My Account and disable Autopay before she levae Canada so PM won't continue charging her.  To disable Autopay, Login to My Account, go to Payment page, click Manage Subscription, then turn off the Subscribed toggle.  (Or she can also use Pubic Mobile app to disable)

[Shawn75]

Thank you! that is a valid point. I've done that before switching country setting back and forth. seems i didnt encounter any problems. My only concern is that once esim is activated on her phone, after her vacation and goes back to China, if she is able to "disable" esim and keep using her existing plan in China. 

[softech]

@Shawn75 

she cannot move the country setting back an forth , I think there is a minimum time period before someone can move change the country setting again after a change

if she is using Android, she can however sideload the app.   Just download the latest version in apk and install

[Shawn75]

thank you for the insights. yes, esim is tricky. Say if she is able to change the country to Canada and download PM app, and do everything she needs to do from the app by choosing esim. Will this disable her current phone plan from China? or she can just take out the sim card from her phone while setting up the esim. 

[softech]

@Shawn75 

the problem she might encounter is that she needs a app store set to Canada to download PM app to activate new account.

yes, you can download the app for her and activate for her and then she can scan the esim from the Welcome email on her phone, but it is tricky, you have to make sure you opt out the process at the esim installation step or the esim will install on your phone

So, it is actually easier to activate an account with physical sim card