While on foreign travel, I choose the foreign SIM cellular plan as default and deactivate roaming on the US carrier option.
I want to use iMessage with my US number and have chosen it as an option in iMessage under “you can receive iMessages to and reply from”.
The question: can I iMessage using the US number while having activated the foreign cellular plan?
Your understanding of my response is correct. Note that this applies to any other app that uses data on your iPhone.
Axel F.
I do this on a daily basis. The only difference is that both of my SIMs (1 Physical SIM + 1 eSIM) are US numbers in US locations. My example will apply to you as well because location does not matter and what matters is which SIM is used for data and use that data to transmit Messages.
Your setup will work. You will have the foreign country's SIM set as default for cellular data. You will probably have the default voice line set to the same SIM (This doesn't affect Messages). Every iMessage from your US number will transmit using the data plan from your foreign SIM. However, every SMS Message will still need to go through the US SIM service. This is because SMS Messages do go through using the cellular data channel.
Axel F.
So the way I understand you is that as long as the SIM of choice is selected as the cellular network, an iMessage (not SMS) sent by or received on other SIM will use data of the chosen SIM cellular network, thus avoiding roaming.
thank you for your answer!
iMessage and eSIM
