Have you ever run into the awkward situation of having no internet access while traveling? There’s now a new solution: Firsty. It offers free, ongoing global internet access, although with some speed limitations. It’s probably not ideal as your primary SIM, but since international roaming itself isn’t always reliable, it can still work well as a backup option for emergencies, such as sending a WeChat message, checking email, or looking up your hotel address. One important thing to note is that the app is still in beta and currently supports only the U.S., EU countries, Switzerland, the U.K., and Turkey. According to the company, coverage will expand to major countries worldwide in March. If you sign up now, you can get 100MB of high-speed data to use up, and it appears there is no time limit.
Firstly Free
After downloading the Firstly app and signing up, you can access the internet for free, but the speed is fairly slow (300kbps), and each session lasts only 60 minutes. After that, you need to watch a short ad video. The app will remind you when it’s time for an ad, but you can complete that requirement before your free session ends, so you don’t have to wait until the time runs out.
Based on our testing, the speed cap is indeed very restrictive. Even though the status bar shows a 5G icon, the actual speed really is that limited, so don’t expect to watch videos. If you need maps, it’s best to download offline maps in advance.
Paid Option
If you’re willing to pay about €1 per day (current pricing), you can upgrade to Firstly Fast, which should provide more normal speeds. That said, the price isn’t exactly cheap. Whether it’s worth it depends on your main line’s data plan.
An Ideal Backup SIM for Travel?
In our view, installing a Firsty eSIM is absolutely worthwhile, even if you don’t travel abroad often. The free service is enough to send messages, find your way to a hotel, or serve as a backup after your regular data plan runs out. Based on our testing, both Firstly Fast and Firstly Free support hotspot use, although for the free option that obviously isn’t very useful. As an emergency backup line, we think it’s a pretty good choice. After all, slow data is still better than no data at all.