Unraveling the Airalo Ecosystem

TL;DR

This study investigates Airalo as a thick Mobile Network Aggregator (MNA) by mapping its global infrastructure, evaluating performance across roaming and native configurations, and analyzing pricing dynamics. Using web-based, device-based, and crawler-based campaigns, the authors reveal Airalo's reliance on a mix of HR and IPX Hub Breakout (IHBO) topologies, with many IHBO breakouts distal from end users and limited visibility for visiting MNOs. Performance results show roaming eSIMs incur higher latency and greater variability than native eSIMs, though IHBO generally reduces private-path overhead compared to home routing; throughput benefits are largely determined by the policies of the underlying v-MNOs and the IPX network. Economically, Airalo demonstrates broad geographic coverage with a median cost per GB around $7.9 and region-dependent pricing, ranking mid-pack among peer eSIM providers, indicating a complex but scalable model for global mobile connectivity and a baseline for evaluating thick MNAs in practice.

Abstract

In recent years, we have witnessed myriad flavours of Mobile Network Aggregators (MNAs) which exploit the coverage footprint of a handful of base operators to provide global mobile connectivity. Under the MNA model, emerging operators reap the benefits of network softwarization and virtualization, including eSIM technology or control/data-plane separation. This paper investigates an emergent MNA type - a thick MNA - that relies on multiple (core) base operators from different economies to provision eSIM profiles, while employing gateway functions to the public internet located outside the respective base operators' home country. Specifically, our work is the first to capture the intricacies of Airalo - a thick MNA that operates in 219 countries. Unlike other MNAs that our community scrutinized, we show that Airalo often decouples the geographical location of the public internet gateway from the native country of the base operator via IPX Hub Breakout (IHBO). To map Airalo's underlying infrastructure, we ran web-based measurements that 14 volunteers performed while traveling and using an Airalo eSIM on their personal devices. We further dive into Airalo's performance by running device-based measurements (speedtest, traceroute, video streaming, etc.) in 10 countries with rooted Android devices. Finally, we examine Airalo's pricing by monitoring its marketplace.

Figures (20)

• Figure 1: Roaming configuration for the data path of an eSIM provisioned by a b-MNO in Poland (green), and operating in Italy (red) via a local v-MNO: home-routed roaming routes the traffic through the home country, local breakout routes the traffic through the visited country, and IPX hub breakout routes the traffic via a third-party location offered by the IPX Provider (or a cloud provider).
• Figure 2: MNAs run a limited part of the network (the light -- only sales $<<$ the thick -- limited core function $<<$ the full -- all the core), and provide global service by exploiting the roaming agreements of several b-MNOs; our paper is the first to investigate a thick MNA.
• Figure 3: Mapping of end user location (triangle) and PGW location (circle) for 21 roaming eSIMs from Airalo. Each line visualizes the approximate distance between SGW and PGW for each eSIM, and the roaming architecture in use: solid line for HR, dashed line for IHBO. The color of PGW location and connected lines correspond to the PGW Provider (see legend in the lower right). Each country is colored based on the b-MNO (see legend in the lower left) associated with an eSIM.
• Figure 4: Mapping of end-user locations (triangles) and PGW locations (circles) for 10 eSIMs using Packet Host (AS54825) as PGW provider. End-user locations are colored by b-MNO country (see legend). PGW locations are also color-coded: red for Amsterdam, green for Virginia.
• Figure 5: Data/signalling traffic comparison between inbound roamers from Airalo with those from Play (b-MNO).