To answer this question accurately it is necessary to break this down into two segments; "the eSIM itself" and "the bundle applied to the eSIM"
1. The eSIM itself
· Will only expire if there has been no usage activity at all in the past 12 months.
2. The bundle applied to the eSIM
· The bundle validity period (11 months prior to activation) won't start to expire until the device connects to a network and the first 10mb of data has been depleted from the bundle.
· If a bundle has not been started and remains completely unused, then it will expire 12 months after the date it was applied to an eSIM.
A scenario to illustrate the difference between SIM expiry and bundle expiry has been written below:
Two bundles are applied to the same eSIM. Both were bought at the same time 12 months ago.
One of the two bundles is used after 6 months, but the second bundle remains completely unused within a 12-month period.
The second unused bundle would expire, but the SIM would not expire as there was usage activity on month 6.
The eSIM would never expire if top-up bundles were periodically added and used inside a 12-month period, but if no bundle was added to the SIM in this example then the SIM would expire after a further 6 months of inactivity.