Dear all, I've had a UK SIM as well as a Canadian SIM forever and have had several dual SIM androids (with my UK SIM & Canadian SIM in it)..
When Virgin UK was sold to O2 in 2023 I couldn't activate my new O2 SIM so I wrote to O2 and they sent an already activated physical SIM to the UK address on the account, my friend couriered to me. I popped it in the phone and it worked.
Now I want to buy an iphone which only has eSIM capability, no physical slot. So my problem is O2 are saying the eSIM must be activated in the UK first. You can have up to 7 eSIMs on the iphone.

I use the UK number for 2FA with UK bank accounts, government gateway, barclaycard....what could I do? Is there a provider I could get a UK eSIM /UK number from? And then would it be easy to change phone numbers with e g. Government Gateway, my bank accounts, UK credit card etc?

Essentially i need a UK number on an eSIM. If I can continue with my present UK number that's my preference but if I can't, where do i get a new UK cell number/eSIM which doesn't involve going to the UK to activate it?
Thank you!
PS I'm not going to the UK any time soon and so I cannot activate anything before using the UK eSIM in Canada.

I’m back in the UK and have a pay as you go plan with Giffgaff - I actually have a physical sim as I’ve had no reason to change. On their website, they say ‘it’s simple to set up an eSIM on an eSIM only phone’. They also give info on how to port your existing UK number to them first. Might be worth you investigating. I think their cheapest plans are £6 per month.

I am with Sky and they claim that their eSims can be activated abroad through their online account and QR code of course.

Thank you both. I'll look at both options.

There is a YouTube video that tells you how to activate a Sky eSim in Ireland so presumably the procedure may be similar in Canada. Maybe? First World problem.

Thank you 😊

In case anyone is interested, this is what happened in the end.

- I was able to get help from the O2 Access team because I have Parkinson’s Disease.

- However they were still saying they couldn’t help, it wouldnt
work etc, that I had to be in the UK etc

So I gave up for a bit. After week or two, I emailed the Access team again, and said I’m buying an iPhone 17 and could they please put a QR code in my O2 account so I could change to an eSIM (I had researched this and so I knew O2 used a QR code to do this.

Long story short. O2 sent the QR Code and my daughter set up the phone. She got the Canadian eSIM working and then the UK one.

Everything worked in about 5 minutes.

Does anyone know if one is in the UK one can get an eSim with US number ?

Does anyone know if one is in the UK one can get an eSim with US number ?

I believe you can buy a number 'from' around 100 countries from www.voip.ms which you can then port to your esim.