The review
Ubigi is the odd one out here, and it is on this page precisely because of that. The other four are built around a tourist buying a fortnight of data. Ubigi will sell you a year.
Two shapes are worth knowing apart. The annual regional plans give you an allowance each month for twelve months, paid up front — five gigabytes a month across Europe for forty-nine dollars — and nothing rolls over. The Best World plans are a single pool instead: a hundred gigabytes to spend anywhere across two hundred destinations over a year, for a hundred and ninety. If you are somewhere for months rather than days, that second shape has no real competitor on this page.
It is also the most substantial company of the five. Ubigi is Transatel, owned by NTT, with its own international network code and direct agreements with more than two hundred carriers rather than wholesale bought from a middleman. Apple lists it among its worldwide eSIM providers, and several car makers put it in their dashboards. The price of all that is a plain data pipe: no number, no texts, so keep your own SIM in the phone for verification codes.
What works
- Annual plans nobody else here sells: 100GB over a year for $190
- 60GB at full speed before any slowdown, and no daily cap
- Hotspot allowed on every plan, including unlimited
- One permanent eSIM you top up rather than a new one each trip
- Owns its network code and deals with carriers directly
What does not
- No phone number and no texts, so SMS logins will not work
- No 5GB tier, which makes it awkward to compare
- Monthly plans tie you in for three months
- Unused data never rolls over, and refunds end at first use