Business eSIM explained: two different products with the same name

"Business eSIM" is sold by two kinds of company and means two unrelated things. One is a mobile line on the company account, with a company phone number on it, sold by O2, EE, Vodafone, Telekom and every other network. The other is data for a trip: a profile an employee adds to their phone for a week in another country, with no phone number, no calls and no SMS. Both are eSIMs in the technical sense, both install from a QR code, and they answer different questions.

Wigoo sells the second kind. This guide is written so you can tell in thirty seconds which one your company needs, including when the answer is the one we do not sell.

The two products, side by side

Everything below follows from that table.

What a carrier business eSIM actually is

It is the SIM card you already have, without the plastic. EE puts it plainly on its business help pages: "Like a traditional SIM card, an eSIM contains the data needed to let your device use the EE network", and if you already have a line, you can order a replacement eSIM for it (EE Business, setting up your eSIM, no date shown). O2 describes its eSIM the same way, as "a digital SIM that allows you to connect to the O2 mobile network", available to Pay Monthly, SIM Only and Pay As You Go customers (O2, last updated 26 August 2026).

Vodafone's business page is the clearest about why a company buys one: "Keep your business and personal number on the same device" (Vodafone Business eSIM, no date shown). That is the real product. The eSIM part is a delivery method, not a feature.

Carriers also sell the fleet version of this. Telekom's MultiSIM gives a business contract up to seven extra cards, eight devices in total, with "eine Rufnummer für abgehende und ankommende Gespräche", a shared data allowance and one bill (Telekom Geschäftskunden, MultiSIM, no date shown). Its eSIM Business Manager is a portal for pushing eSIM profiles onto large device fleets, described as "ein Tool zur schnellen Inbetriebnahme von eSIM-Profilen bei großen Endgeräte-Flotten" (Telekom Geschäftskunden, eSIM Business Manager, no date shown).

If what you want is a number that belongs to the company, a line IT can suspend when someone leaves, or a fleet of devices provisioned centrally, that is the product, and you buy it from a carrier. Nothing on the travel eSIM market replaces it.

What a travel data eSIM is

A second profile that lives in the phone alongside the employee's existing line, carries data in a named country or region, and stops when the plan does. Ours are data only: no phone number, so no calls and no SMS, in either direction.

That sounds like a limitation and mostly is not, because the employee's own line does not go anywhere. It stays in the phone, switched on, with its number and its texts. The travel eSIM only takes over mobile data.

The distinction is not unique to us. Carriers sell data only lines with the same shape for tablets and laptops: Vodafone's business data SIM page says "with no minutes or texts, you'd generally use Data only SIMs when working on iPads, tablets & laptops, or using a dongle or mobile Wi-Fi" (Vodafone Business, data only SIM, no date shown). A travel eSIM is that idea, bought per trip instead of per month, on a network in another country.

Does an eSIM have a phone number, and can it make calls?

Both questions have the same answer: it depends which of the two products you bought, and nothing about eSIM technology decides it.

• A carrier line delivered as an eSIM has a phone number and makes calls and sends SMS, exactly like the plastic SIM it replaced.
• A data only profile, ours included, has no number at all. Not a hidden one, not one you can call: there is nothing to dial. So no calls, no SMS, no voicemail, and no receiving a verification code on it.

Some travel eSIM sellers do offer profiles with a number attached, usually at a higher price. We do not, and it is worth knowing before an employee tries to receive a bank code on a plan that structurally cannot carry one. What actually happens to those codes is a question in its own right: travel eSIMs and SMS verification walks through the setup that keeps them arriving.

Calls over WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom, Meet or FaceTime are a different matter. They are data, so they work on a data only plan like any other app, subject to whatever the destination country allows.

Which one should the company buy

Most companies need both, for different people, and the mistake is assuming one replaces the other. A travel eSIM does not give anyone a company number. A carrier line does not stop a bill arriving from a country outside the roaming zone.

The employee's own line keeps working, and that matters more than it sounds

Adding a travel eSIM does not remove anything. The employee's usual line stays installed and switched on, still receiving calls and texts on its own number, while data goes through the travel profile. This is what keeps two things alive that break the trip when they stop: the work number colleagues and customers already have, and the SMS codes from banks, expense tools and two factor logins.

The one setting that matters is data roaming on the original line, which should be off. With it off, that line receives but never spends. That single switch is the difference between a normal trip and the sort of invoice that starts an internal investigation, which is its own guide.

What buying for a team looks like today, honestly

One eSIM is one device. There is no bulk flow and no corporate account product: buying for a team today means one purchase per person, each installed on that person's phone. We would rather say that plainly than let a travel manager discover it halfway through a rollout.

In practice that shapes how companies use us. It works well when the traveller buys and expenses it, or when an office manager buys for a named handful of people before a trip. It is not a replacement for a mobile fleet contract, and we are not pretending otherwise.

Two practical points if you are sizing plans for other people:

• Estimate from what the phone actually does, not from a feeling. Video calls are the expensive item by a wide margin, and everything else is rounding. The realistic per hour numbers are in how much data apps really use.
• Assume laptops eat more than you think. A phone used as a hotspot for a working day burns data at a completely different rate, mostly on cloud sync and updates nobody asked for. Working from a laptop abroad has the numbers and the things to switch off first.

What to write in the travel policy

One line in the policy does most of the work: name who is responsible for the employee having a working connection on landing, and name how it is paid for. A traveller who is unreachable makes every other part of a duty of care programme decorative, which is the argument made at length in our guide to corporate travel policy and duty of care.

The connectivity clause itself is short. It should say which of the two products applies to whom, whether the company reimburses a travel plan or expects roaming on the company line, what the employee does if the connection fails on arrival, and who they contact. The rest of that guide covers the parts of a policy that are not about connectivity at all.

If you are deciding between the two products for a specific set of people, tell us the destinations and how long they are away and we will tell you honestly whether we are the answer: support.

Sources: EE Business, "Setting up your eSIM" (no date shown on the page); O2, "What is an eSIM and how to set it up", last updated 26 August 2026; Vodafone Business, "eSIM for business customers" and "Business data SIM only for tablets" (no dates shown, pages carry a 2026 copyright); Telekom Geschäftskunden, "MultiSIM dazubuchen" and "eSIM Business Manager" (no dates shown). Carrier products, zones and prices differ by country, by tariff and by contract, so treat the descriptions above as what each carrier says its product is, not as a quote for your company. Checked 29 September 2026.

Quick answers

Does an eSIM have a phone number?

It depends which product it is. A carrier line delivered as an eSIM has a phone number and behaves exactly like the plastic SIM it replaced. A travel data eSIM like ours has no number at all, which is why it cannot make calls or receive SMS. The employee's own line keeps its number and keeps receiving texts, as long as it stays switched on in the phone.

Can an eSIM make calls?

A carrier line on an eSIM can. A data only travel plan cannot, because there is no number on it to call or be called. Calls through WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom or FaceTime work normally, because those travel as data like anything else.

What is the best business eSIM?

There is no single answer, because the phrase covers two products. If you need a company phone number, a line IT can suspend, or a fleet provisioned centrally, buy a carrier business line and compare carriers on roaming zones and support. If you need an employee connected abroad for a defined trip, buy a travel data plan for the countries they are visiting and leave their own line switched on for calls and codes.