London Broadband ISP CommunityFibre Launch Data Roaming eSIM Mobile Plan UPDATE

Alternative network ISP CommunityFibre, which has so far built their 5Gbps speed full fibre broadband (FTTP) network to cover 1.342 million UK homes (plus c.200k businesses) – mostly in London, today claims to have become one of the first altnets to launch an international data roaming eSIM mobile service – available across over 160 countries.

The Community Fibre eSIM is essentially a prepaid 4G and 5G capable data plan with support for tethering and “no hidden fees, charges, or contracts“, which can also be topped up at any time, even when you’re offline. The flexible data roaming plans, which can be used alongside your existing physical SIM and number, allows users to choose the amount of data they need and the number of days they’ll need it for before travel.

The new service is also being supporting by a new Community Fibre eSIM App, which can be taken via the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Overall, this is an interesting product for a provider like CommunityFibre to launch, although it doesn’t appear to be all that different from the many other data centric eSIM providers that have popped up over the past few years.

The announcement does however claim that customers can “save up to 96% with our prepaid data plans in over 160 countries“, although this claim lacks a clear base of substantiation for comparison. One other issue is that it doesn’t seem possible to bring up any pricing via the eSIM page on their website, which suggests that this may only be possible if you install their App first.

UPDATE 1:57pm

Digging deeper, we found a mention of that 96% saving in the FAQ sections of their website, which states the following: “Saving compared to UK mobile providers. 96% compares Community Fibre eSIM for 1 GB for 7 days in USA (£2.29) vs Vodafone’s daily roaming rate of £7.86 (if you bought your plan on or after 11 August 2021 and don’t have inclusive destinations in your data plan).”

We think this may not be the best comparison, since it’s not a true apples-to-apples comparison with a similar eSIM service. For example, Airalo will give you 1GB for 7 days at £3.50 and eSIM Choice will do the same for £3. But we’d need to compare across multiple countries and providers to find what sort of average savings may be possible, if any, although £2.29 is good.