Public methodology

Public methodology and disclosure

This exploratory research was prepared on 13 October 2026 from stored NXTL/OCS network usage detail. The main analysis uses available recorded history from 14 July to 10 October 2026 UTC, with a partial initial day. The recent supporting period is 11 September–10 October. The exclusive cutoff is 11 October at 00:00 UTC, more than 48 hours before extraction. The intended 90-day and 180-day analyses lack earlier byte history; missing history is not treated as zero traffic.

An active account has positive included usage in the relevant window. Summaries combine its included eSIM traffic once. Stored usage timestamps, rather than processing timestamps, determine period membership. Decimal GB thresholds use 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. The source does not measure Wi-Fi or other SIMs, and no confirmed trip duration or customer purpose is available.

Known staff/admin traffic and ambiguous differing-quantity records are excluded from primary results. Higher-volume and business accounts are retained. Alternative quantity scenarios change the main-period mean by less than 1%, with the same median and below-5-GB share. An aligned historical extraction matches an existing NXTL usage report, establishing reporting consistency rather than an independent supplier completeness audit. Separate supplier aggregates were not combined because their time alignment remains unresolved.

Activity-pattern rules use observed spans, active-day density, country transitions and inactivity gaps. They were tested under alternative definitions and do not establish actual travel or backup intent. Closed episodes exclude relevant observation-boundary and unresolved-source cases. Their sensitivity is reported descriptively.

Public results use rounded whole percentages and normalized indices. Exact account and eSIM counts, record counts, total traffic, absolute usage summaries, charges and individual observations are commercially confidential. Calculation records are retained privately and have not been independently reviewed. Withheld denominators limit external assessment of sample scale and precision; no confidence intervals or significance claims are made.

The cohort is not a representative sample of international travellers, bundle buyers or all NXTL network sources. Accounts can support multiple devices and people. They were not necessarily active throughout the study period. PAYG customers may have different needs from customers selecting fixed allowances. Longer coverage improves the amount of observed history, but does not resolve these selection and measurement limits.

NXTL sells PAYG connectivity and has a commercial interest in the subject. This is descriptive company research. It does not measure purchased competitor allowances, actual expired data, destination rankings or global financial waste. Rounding reduces published precision but does not provide a formal guarantee against inference from other sources.

Back to the Travel eSIM Usage Study 2026 · Rounded chart data (CSV) · White paper (PDF)