Two days ago we wrote that the coverage list and the prices in Clear Roam would keep moving while we finished the carrier side — “the part of this product that is negotiated rather than coded”. That part is now signed. Clear Roam's connectivity will run on eSIMaccess.

eSIMaccess is a global eSIM connectivity platform: they hold the agreements with local carriers around the world and expose all of it through one API — profiles, plans, activation, usage. We integrate that API; travellers get data that attaches to a real local network the moment they land.

Why a partner at all

Nobody hands a five-person app studio a stack of carrier contracts. Roaming agreements are negotiated country by country, and the companies that hold them measure those negotiations in years. Building that ourselves was never on the table — the honest choice was between pretending otherwise and picking the best platform to stand on.

We evaluated a few. eSIMaccess won on the things we refuse to compromise on: coverage that is actually global rather than global-with-asterisks, usage data we can query often enough to show a live burn-down, and provisioning that is fast enough to buy a plan at the gate and be online at baggage claim.

What this changes for Clear Roam

  • The coverage list becomes real. The 197 countries in the catalogue stop being a development figure and become the list we can stand behind at launch.
  • The prices become real. We can finally price plans against actual wholesale costs instead of placeholders. The screenshots from the first-look post remain officially not an offer.
  • The data screen stays honest. Usage comes from the platform, so the “what is left” number at 2am in an airport is the carrier's number, not our guess.

So the work proceeds

With the partnership signed, Clear Roam moves from “in build, pending negotiations” to just in build. The integration work is underway now: wiring checkout and the eSIM install flow to the eSIMaccess API, repricing the catalogue, and then the long tail of testing on real trips with no backup SIM in the wallet.

Still on the list after that: the Android install flow, which has more variation between manufacturers than we would like, and store review on both platforms, which we have learned to budget time for.

No date, same bar as before. When there is a build we would take on a trip without a backup SIM, it ships — and it is now a lot closer to that bar than it was last week.