AT&T adds new free eSIM trial program as it is seen as a competitor to T-Mobile and Verizon

Anyone thinking about switching to AT&T finally has an easier way to try out the carrier’s network. On Thursday, the company officially announced its aptly named “Try AT&T” program, which lets you test the network for up to 30 days by downloading an eSIM.

The new option will be available in the company’s myAT&T app and will work with unlocked 2018 iPhones iPhone XS, XS Max And XR. The carrier says it will open the program to Android phones in 2025.

Read more: Our selection of the best telephone tariffs

Once you’re in the app, simply select “Start Trial” and the app will download a virtual eSIM to provide access to the carrier’s service. Like T-Mobile and Verizon, the program uses eSIMs to show you how AT&T compares to your existing service while keeping that line active.

The carrier doesn’t require a credit card or credit check to sign up for the trial, which runs up to 30 days. You get 100GB of data (including 5G access), unlimited talk and texting (including texting to “more than 230 countries”), plus an additional 25GB of hotspot data for connecting other devices such as laptops or tablets. The latter is unique to testing programs, which often limited the data only to the device itself, with no ability to share it.

As with similar programs, you must wait 12 months after your trial expires before trying again.

The move to add this kind of eSIM-based sampling to its network is long overdue, as AT&T has lagged behind its competitors in trials for years. T-Mobile has long offered a network sampling program, adding support for eSIMs in 2021 before expanding its “Network Pass” option later in 2022 to let people try the network for free for three months . Verizon launched a similar program (for 30 days). ) with its own sampling program in 2022.

Other smaller providers like Visible (owned by Verizon) and Cricket (owned by AT&T) offer their own testing programs, but these are generally limited to about two weeks.