I've been without a SIM for over a year. Here are a few more tips:<p>- Google Voice gives you a free number that works anywhere and can be used for texting and 2FA. (There are some exceptions.)<p>- Calling with Google Hangouts is free to some countries, cheap in others, and can be configured to show your Google Voice number as the caller. Unfortunately, the call quality cans be pretty bad, definitely worse than, say, Skype.<p>- Google Maps offline works great on iPhone.<p>It feels liberating to have no SIM. I'm not always reachable, and that's a good thing. I'm not always connected to the internet, also a good thing. I usually near urban or suburban areas, so free WiFi is everywhere. When I want to connect, I connect. Easy.<p>Along with living without SIMs, my family also has a policy of No Screen Day (NSD) once a week. We all put our phones, computers, etc in closet at 11pm and don't touch them until 6am two days later. No TV, no going to movies theaters, no screens of any kind. We love our NSDs. They cause us to do different kinds of things, sometimes just read books. It usually the best day of the week.
I envy the OP. Unfortunately since September 2019 living without SIM card became (practically) illegal in EU.<p>> most online payments above €30 to go through an extra level of verification such as entering a code received via a text message. [2]<p>Most banks unwisely chosen SMS as Strong Customer Authentication providing little choice to customers.<p><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/payment-services-psd-2-directive-eu-2015-2366_en" rel="nofollow">https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/payment-services-psd-2-directi...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/psd2" rel="nofollow">https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/psd2</a>
If saving money is the reason, go for a prepaid card. German/Dutch prepaid cards have far long credit life. I travel full-time nowadays and I can use my KPN number for less than €1 per year.<p>German Alditalk credit lasts 24 months IIRC, and topping up extends the credit shelf life.<p>Pretty much every SIM card has free incoming SMS when roaming. USSD are also free with some carriers.<p>Losing SIM card is less of a hassle with eSIMs.<p>Perhaps other than tracking concerns, I'm totally not convinced with the reasoning.
To me, the price paid to a cellular provider is actually preferable to relying on other people's WiFi networks.<p>Using someone else's WiFi isn't a security advantage, it's the opposite. You're bumming off of someone's network and not even paying them - so who knows what their motivations might be. Who knows if the network that the SSID claims to be is <i>actually</i> that network.<p>Is Starbucks Free WiFi actually run by Starbucks or is it a malicious router placed in the same vicinity? I don't actually know until I connect.<p>I would suggest the alternative of using a pay-as-you-go plan on a SIM card, something that doesn't cost a lot with low usage. If you want to be more disconnected you can simply turn on airplane mode. In almost any country in the world you can pay less than $10/month to maintain a phone line and SIM card.
So you freed yourself of the hassle of paying for a SIM, but constantly rely on others who have a SIM to get around?<p>German Freenet Funk offers one-day-one-euro prepaid SIM; you can cancel any day.<p>Satellite.me gives you a German mobile number through an app for free (SMS support is in alpha, though).
Five years ago I quit my Software Engineering job, and I got rid of my dumb phone. I've not had a SIM since. My sister gave me her ~4 year old HTC One phone, which I take out and power on about once a month to use as an alarm or use google authentication or some such.<p>I'm a person who is a little addicted to the internet, so for me I think of it like an alcoholic not walking into bars - I'd be that guy constantly reaching for my phone in social situations, so it's simply better if I avoid the temptation and just don't have one.<p>A few thoughts:<p>- Yes, I occasionally ask humans for directions. It's actually kind of novel and always starts a conversation.<p>- I had to talk to my bank for an hour to let me use email as my verification option. Works fine now.<p>- I have wifi at home, so I have tons of contact with my family using my laptop and video chat, messenger, etc. I spend more than enough time online.<p>- I have a large social media presence, but it never 'bothers' me. I do it for 15 minutes a day on my laptop, then I put it away and I never get a single notification during the day.<p>- I thoroughly enjoy sitting in a bar or other social setting and looking around the table to see who wants to make eye contact and talk vs. who is staring at their phone. Many times I'm the only person at a large table not using a phone.<p>- Sometimes I miss out on social stuff because friends are organizing on whatsapp or even messenger an I don't open my laptop so I don't see it. I honestly think this wouldn't change if I had a phone, because I'd turn off notifications and only look at it a few times a day.<p>- I've saved a lot of money over the years<p>- It certainly is inconvenient at times, and I'm currently flirting with the idea of getting a SIM for the old HTC so I can take creit card payments. So be it. I probably won't install any apps.
> …it's the only thing which has prevented me from having to continually make international calls from a friends phone<p>By relying on other people it is possible to do without many things.<p>However, unless you have other ways of signaling sufficient status or wealth (such as being a digital nomad living abroad in a lower income country), people you continuously rely on for essentials might start treating you with a little less respect.
I've also tried going SIM-less for a few years. Wifi hotspots are frequently around you rarely find yourself in a situation needing a data plan.<p>But the main problem is 2FA many services force you to use now.<p>Going without a data plan is wonderful, but every now and then, having a couple minutes are SMS services is great.
My First reaction was that it sounds awesome and I want to try it for a view month.<p>Then I realized that most German delivery services require a phone number and email address (like when you order a new shelf or phone or computer or ...).<p>Then I realized that the messenger I use to communicate with my family bases identity on the phone number (not my choice, but nothing I can easily change).<p>Then I realize that my main relevant usage is to get live information about public transport.<p>Well I guess I'm not quite ready for it yet maybe when I managed to convince everyone to switch to a non phone number based messenger.
Nobody is pointing at the elephant in the room:<p>GSM, WiFi, TCP/IP, SIM cards, debit cards could provide strong privacy for everybody by default.<p>Requiring random, temporary, untracked addresses by law is possible and achievable.<p>Yet, society accepts corporate surveillance for the masses and privacy for the powerful and wealthy.
Without a SIM card it would be a lot harder to do my taxes, access my online bank, check my insurance, etc., because the SIM card is used to veriy my identity using a solution called BankID. (<a href="https://www.bankid.no/en/company/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bankid.no/en/company/</a>)
It's a lot easier then the alternative with OTP codes, especially since BankID is now supported by a lot of different sites and services. From government, banking, phone companies, etc.
What about <a href="https://crypton.sh" rel="nofollow">https://crypton.sh</a>? I saw they do SIM cards (also with encrypted storage), servers in Iceland and privacy stuff.
I would say that this does not work in third world countries and the author also mentions this subtly by saying.<p>>>If you're in Southeast Asia and in need a taxi service, you can ask someone to hail you a Grab. I've done this numerous times in Kuala Lumpur by kindly asking Coffee shop baristas. The feeling of moving around without your whereabouts being constantly beamed into a database can be quite liberating.<p>Imagine asking strangers to book you a cab in a country you cannot speak the language of.<p>While these countries and all first world countries have the ability to hail cabs for instance, asking strangers is basically not the way anyone goes because they don't have a sim card. For example, I do use a data-only SIM in a country I am visiting right now from Google Fi just to do basic things like ordering an Uber, checking bus timings etc.<p>However, I cannot without a local number
1. Order Food Online
2. Get Any services which require mobile number valid in the country for any services<p>I am used to doing all this because I have a phone number in my country, but can't do this in another country, because logistics involve delays and they have to be communicated and a local number is the best way to do it. Without wide-spread messaging only services which work out of the box for every app there is no way any establishment can contact you.<p>Everything is a step in the right direction, for example, people would call on WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger etc, but you don't expect micro-economy people in third world countries to have the skills to do that, they will want a phone number to do it.
I live without 3G on my phone, though I still have a SIM card for receiving "emergency" calls. I haven't topped it up though, so I can't call out.<p>It's been wonderful to make me focus on face to face conversations with people, rather than checking notifications all the time. I ask them to add me on Facebook, or make a note of their email address. If I can get online, I use mbasic.facebook.com with no ads, which loads quickly on an old phone.<p>My phone wakes me up with an alarm, but I'm not flooded with depressing Apple News first thing in the morning.<p>On the bus, I read books (the Bible and others, Edward Snowden's autobiography last year, currently The Shockwave Rider). I also browse offline Wikipedia (personally Wiki2Touch, but I've heard good things about Kiwix). I use Galileo Offline Maps with MOBAC-scraped tiles, without turn by turn directions.<p>Battery life is significantly better without 3G, and makes the old iPhone 4S quite usable.<p>Google Voice is often allowed for 2FA, and I use that when I need to receive SMS (e.g. TransferWise).<p>I could go without a SIM card entirely, but for the rare occasions when I do need to receive a call (e.g. I agree a place and time to meet someone, and they're late), then I still keep it in my phone.<p>It worries me to read that the US immigration department are using anonymised cell tower histories to trace people, but I don't know if removing the SIM card would solve that.
If it's for privacy, wouldn't a burner phone make more sense?<p>Otherwise leaching off everyone around you to save a bit of money... seems like it would get old pretty quickly
A reasonable compromise is to just have a SIM card with a basic prepaid phone (and SMS) plan but no data. Lots of people I know do that. Phone is online at home, in the workplace, at restaurants etc, and you can communicate.
Getting rid of my SIM card is attractive to me for financial and political reasons, but it would not be compatible with my loved ones' expectations that I be reachable in an emergency. Here's a compromise I have been thinking about; I wonder if anyone has experience making it work (or knows why it won't) on an unlocked iPhone 6:<p><pre><code> - Buy a pay-as-you-go SIM card with support for SMS and data, but no voice, for when I'm not on WIFI.
- When I am on WIFI, use VOIP for calling, and SMS and data as usual.
</code></pre>
Possible challenges/questions I need to research more:<p><pre><code> - Will iPhone permit a SIM card without voice?
- Can I receive SMS via WIFI when connected and via the burner SIM otherwise?
- What service should I use for VOIP when connected, and for accepting voicemails when not connected?
- I know Apple overlays its iMessages over SMS (which causes terrible headaches when someone switches from iPhone to Android, and no longer receives iMessages). How should I manage this?</code></pre>
Not trolling: How does your life feel different knowing your data is not being stored in some database?<p>Losing out on all those conveniences sounds miserable to me.
One major advantage is the impact on phone battery life - partly because various services aren't repeatedly pinging over the mobile network (especially in "notspots"), WiFi tends not to burn through battery. And partly because it tends to change your behaviour to do more focused things (the phone isn't constantly trying to distract you as it often can't, so you don't then waste time and power on these distractions).<p>I don't think I'd abandoned a SIM card in the near future but having used my old phone without the SIM as an alternate for my new phone on a few occasions, the old phone battery went from being awful to lasting way longer than my brand new phone of comparable specs.
My smartphones NEVER have SIM cards in them—as I'm not that stupid so as to become just another easy target of surveillance capitalism! Instead, they connect by Wi-Fi to external portable routers that do have SIMs installed in them. As such, these phones can connect to the internet but cannot be used be used to make telephone calls. Thus, there cannot be any cross-reference between my actual telephone number and my internet activity.<p>In addition, my smartphones use LineageOS without any Google Apps (GApps) installed and their browsers always have JavaScript disabled. Right, I have absolutely no need for social media, Facebook etc, and I never use any of Google's services such as Gmail—except perhaps search via an anonymous metasearch engines such as DuckDuckGo.<p>So how do I actually communicate? I use a separate dumb phone that has no internet access.<p>Oh, BTW, I never order stuff online via a smartphone, nor do I use smartphones for email.<p>So, am I a Luddite? Definitely not, I've always been a high tech worker, I was an early adopter of mobile phone technology, and I had one of Motorola's "bricks" the moment they came on the market decades ago. Moreover, if you saw the complex configurations of my smartphones and the ways they have been rooted (with the latest Magisk super-user software, LineageOS and firewall configurations to stop app software phoning home) then you'd realize I'm more a mobile communications platform than a person with a smartphone).<p>You may well ask why do I go to such lengths. It's principle really: as I see it, when I bought my first Motorola "brick" the telephone service was essentially anonymous with the option of users being listed in the telephone directory. Since then governments have deregulated and sold out our phone systems to Big Tech without any of us users ever having had a say in the matter—the damn hide of them! Nowadays, not only has Big Tech (Google, Facebook, Microsoft etc.) usurped our internet but they've also fucked our phone networks by actually integrating their corporations' businesses into our telephone systems—and they've essentially done so without anyone's permission.
Mobile without cellular and therefore without SIM: <a href="https://github.com/xxlsec/proteusdevice/wiki" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/xxlsec/proteusdevice/wiki</a>
I had been living without a sim card for almost 2 years, and just use wifi. Loved it. No I have to because I am starting my own company and have no choice, otherwise I would have removed tphone completely.<p>But I will do it
What the point? It’s so much hassle for no reason. If you want to be not dependent on something then don’t use a smart phone. But having a smart phone without a SIM seems the worse of both worlds.
Oof. I honestly don't know which is less secure: SMS or e-mail confirmation. <i>Probably</i> the former, but the latter is probably easy to downgrade into plaintext, and can/does does go through random middle boxes. You can add mitigations all over the <i>client</i> but I'm not aware of any requirement for strong authn+z in the protocol.<p>As a <i>second factor</i>, SMS is better, <i>unless</i> that 2FA e-mail is allowed to be different from your primary e-mail, and you only every sign into it from your phone.
> <i>Finally, relax. The world isn't going to end if you don't respond to every message instantly. And your friends and family will come to know you weren't actually trying to ignore them when you didn't respond right away.</i><p>So much this. Applies to IMs as well.
I used a dumb phone until recently. It was only possible, because my partner's phone could fulfil both of our "smart" needs. It's not easy to get around that. If there's just 1 service that requires a smartphone that you can't do without, you have to get one.
Living without SIM Card is actually quite doable (I haven't made phone calls for a while and non of previous ones was mandatory), and you can always get a number using IP Phone or something else.<p>Living without Internet, on the other hand...
I have plan that only costs me 8$ a month. I get 150 min, 150 text messages and no Data. it's USmobile, they're awesome. i have no affiliation with them other than being a customer.
What if mobile operator can give you a fixed mobile number, and periodically changing ones, that forward SMS/calls to fixed one? Give fixed number to relatives, variable to fb.
Would you pay for this service?
He mention the risk of having stuff injected in the header while being connected to an isp. But doesn’t care about public hotspots? Personally I would rather trust a couple ISP’s than random hotspots.
In Norway (and rest of the world for all i know) banks offer ID auth which is linked to your SIM for online banking. Are there any similar service available without SIM?
When I travel overseas, if I can’t get a cheap SIM and data plan, I’m living for days trying to find public WiFi.<p>Colombia has lots of free WiFi in parks, for example. We should be doing this everywhere.
For maps: Here Wego (new name for HERE Maps) can work completely offline once you download the necessary maps (even directions).<p>It's been a lifesaver in the pre-EU-roaming era
>The feeling of moving around without your whereabouts being constantly beamed into a database can feel quite liberating.<p>Hate to break it to you buddy but you're still being tracked and your database updates every time you connect to wifi. Frankly you're being tracked much more precisely than I am with my GPS and wifi turned off.
Some of the inconveniences listed aren't really a thing: For example, you can use google services on devices with no sim so long as you have it connected to wifi. I figured this out because i had a new phone that wouldn't accept the SIM size, so I carried both that and the working phone with the sim for a short time. Google Maps and Open street maps works offline, but you need to be online to, say, get driving directions. Google will still give turn-by-turn directions offline, though. It simply won't have the same features of your choice of maps.<p>I think facebook still works so long as you have signed up from a computer, but I might be wrong. I've only considered having it on my tablet (that has never had a sim), but never bothered to install it on my phone.<p>So many things depend more on the device being on the internet (through whatever means) than having the sim card. The main thing you need it for is phone calls, SMS, and roaming internet - and sometimes, banking, but not always. I've realized this because my phone has roaming internet turned off by defaut - I use wifi as my primary phone internet and as it turns out, I pay minimal amounts for the phone (I'm not willing to go without, even though it is rarely used).