Why 5G belongs in your travel eSIM bundles

End users who have 5G at home expect it abroad. Offering it is not a technical nicety; it is how you sell bigger bundles and more top-ups.

Every generation of mobile has reset what people expect from a connection. 5G is the latest, and if you sell travel data bundles it is worth understanding why it should be part of your offer rather than a footnote.

Five things to know about 5G

• It gives end users a home Wi-Fi experience wherever they are.
• Its speed removes the usual constraints on sharing large files, streaming and using data-heavy apps.
• It is not everywhere yet. Coverage is concentrated in built-up areas rather than rural ones.
• Some countries are further ahead than others, notably the US and China.
• Coverage is growing everywhere, and most national tier-1 networks will hand a 5G connection to any handset that supports it, exactly as they did with 4G.

Nice to have becomes must have, fast

In travel, online check-in, mobile boarding passes and in-flight Wi-Fi all started as novelties. End users turned each one into a baseline expectation, and the market had to follow.

5G will go the same way. The lesson is to keep pace with what your end users already have at home, or watch them go to a competitor who does.

Some end users have never had it

Picture an end user who lives in a rural area with 3G most of the time and 4G when they are lucky. Now picture them landing in the US, where over 500 cities have 5G coverage.

People like to try new things when they travel. Giving them 5G through your bundle in a 5G destination is a genuinely good experience. Handing them 3G or 4G instead is a missed one.

Once you have had 5G, anything slower feels broken

Find an old handset in a drawer, or plug in a TV that predates HD. After five seconds of nostalgia you are left with something noticeably worse than what you use every day.

More and more end users are on 5G at home. That has reset their expectations upward. If 5G is available where they are going, they will want it, or at least want the choice.

Business travellers will pay for it

Holidaymakers make compromises on a trip: smaller rooms, unfamiliar food, basic transport. Connectivity is rarely one of them, but occasionally it is.

Business travellers will not compromise on connection speed at all. If the best quality option costs more, they will pay it. That is margin you should be capturing.

Faster connections mean more data sold

Every time end users get a faster connection, they use more data. Streaming, social video, gaming, video calls, enterprise apps: the pattern holds across fixed and mobile, every time.

5G is typically at least ten times faster than 4G. Your end users get through the same data faster, at higher quality, and come back for more. For you that means demand for bigger bundles and more frequent top-ups.

Our footprint includes 5G on over 250 networks. Offer it and you show your end users you are serious about quality, while giving them every reason to use more.

Our bundles include 5G on over 250 networks. See how it works.