Nomad Life Ops Part 2: Reliable Global Connectivity
The infrastructure for living is definitely not setup for nomads. Convention assumes a person has a home-base to conduct daily life such as banking, healthcare, connectivity, favorite streaming shows, etc. Good news is, unconventional solutions do exist for people like us and is ever evolving. Start digging around YouTube and there’s a plethora of advice on how to accomplish this. Here’s Part 2 of the behind-the-scenes look at how we chose to structure our nomad life operations…for now.
Nomad Life Ops Part 2: Reliable Global Connectivity
Let’s discuss cellular service, data, talk, and text around the world! This is not only how we stay connected and plan all of our travels, it’s how we conduct our personal business whether it be financial, medical, etc. and in emergencies we definitely need the service to be effortless, seamless, and reliable.
View from our hotel room, Roxas City, Phillipines
“What’s the big deal”?, you might ask. (1) Can’t we just keep our cellular carrier such as the T-Mobile Global Plan? Nope, not after 90-days of being abroad. We’ll explain below. (2) These days, travelers subscribe to an eSIM service and provides a SIM menu for each country. eSIM is a significant improvement from the tiny physical SIM cards, but not for full-time nomads like us. Read why below. (3) What about using WiFi and VOIP such as Google Voice? Again, there are crippling barriers when we need the to make phone calls the most.
In a nutshell, it’s more complicated than we imagined.
Popcorn Mobile to the Rescue!
Fortunately, Mike did a lot of research and field testing for many months before we took off and so far, the best solution was to transfer our cellular service to a carrier called Popcorn. 🍿 Cute, eh? So far, we love Popcorn! Bonus for the seamlessness in being able to keep our phone numbers because it’s still a US based carrier.
Popcorn is specifically designed to solve several confounding issues that arise when cobbling together a combo of traditional carriers, eSIM, WiFi, and VOIP. Issues such as:
Issue 1: The “90-Day Kill Switch.” Traditional US carriers like T-Mobile and Google Fi are designed for short-term vacations. After ~90 days abroad, these carriers often flag your account for "excessive roaming" and suspend international data privileges.
Issue 2: The “Local SIM Fatigue.” Using a local eSIM service such as Airalo and local providers is common but comes with hidden costs. Popcorn keeps the unlimited data, talk, and text all in one package - just like a regular cellular service - so the experience is seamless.
It’s a lot of effort to buy, install, and manage a new eSIM every time we cross a border.
Also, many travel eSIMs are data only, meaning they don't give us a way to make local phone calls (e.g., to a doctor or a restaurant). This means, to make calls, we’d still want to maintain a traditional US based cellular service that can be suspended in 90-days (see Issue 1!)
To make international calls it’s about 25 cents per minute. We still have a lot of personal business to do with the US so that might add up.
Not to mention, the data is not unlimited like we’re used to these days, so we would have to keep buying more or limit ourselves.
Issue 3: The “WiFi Calling Failure.” Low cost carriers such as Tello and Mint Mobile rely heavily on WiFi calling for international use. Users frequently report that WiFi fails to activate behind certain hotel and airport firewalls or is often too weak to make a connection. We can vouch for this through our experience. We’re also at risk for being charged an exorbitant roaming cost when WiFi fails. The unreliability is not only frustrating, it’s a deal breaker for us.
Issue 4: The "VOIP Rejection.” Porting our cellular numbers to a “virtual” voice-over IP service like Google Voice and Skype is a problem for us because financial services such as banks and credit card companies will refuse to send 2-Factor Authentication codes to VOIP numbers. This could lock us from accessing our finances. Somehow, through Popcorn, our number remains classified as a standard mobile line, so automated banking systems treat it just like any other US cell phone. Whew.
Other Connectivity Tips
Physical SIM Card: Some countries (e.g. Cuba) are completely off any foreign cellular carrier or eSIM grid. In case we encounter this situation, we have an extra older model smartphone that still takes a physical SIM card.
Virtual Private Network (VPN): We always keep our VPN active on all devices to keep our accounts secure and prevent hacking. VPN occasionally reduces the internet speed time and we’ve had problems accessing some websites where we really need the VPN to work, but overall, a good security measure.
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Read Nomad Life Ops Part 1: Where Is Our Residency and Address? for more tips on the logistics of being a world nomad!
