The short answer
O2 Travel puts your UK phone to work across the US at £7 a day (about $9), billed only for the days you touch it. Ringo Light is a single payment for the whole trip, unlimited data at full speed, 2 weeks at $17.99 or 30 days at $22.99, and it is the one I would buy for most trips. O2 keeps real advantages: the number you already use, calls and texts, no eSIM slot needed.
Two weeks is $17.99 and a month $22.99, paid once, with no speed ceiling on a road trip or a laptop session. The O2 page I read charges £7 each day the phone is used in the US and holds data at 2Mbps.
Your UK number keeps ringing, texts land as normal, and the charge arrives on the O2 bill you already settle. Nothing to download before you fly, and an older phone without eSIM is fine. Ringo Light carries data only, so here O2 is the better answer.
Prices read on 31 October 2026: O2, Ringo Light, European Central Bank on their own sites or listings, Ringo Light from its catalogue. All in US dollars unless stated. Treat every number as a snapshot.
See the full price index for every country.
Travelling further? Compare the best eSIM for Canada.
The prices, charted
US dollars, 31 October 2026. The O2 bar assumes the bolt-on fires on all 14 days, the most it can cost across a fortnight. Sterling is turned into dollars with the ECB reference rate from 30 October 2026, the newest on 31 October, £1 = $1.34.
No monthly bolt-on appears on the O2 page, so a US month is thirty times £7. Same ECB rate, £1 = $1.34, of 30 October 2026. Ringo Light covers all thirty days in one payment.
Side by side
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Head to head
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Get Ringo Light for the United States, from $7.99.
Installed once, next to your own SIM. Your eSIM arrives by email in seconds.
- 7 days $7.99
- 2 weeks $17.99
- 30 days $22.99
We sell data eSIMs for now to fund the full Ringo service. Ringo is self funded. Every plan bought here pays for the build of one plan that works everywhere.
Want to keep your own number abroad?
That is the full Ringo service: one plan that works everywhere, with your own number included.
It is a separate product from Ringo Light and it is still being built, so it is not on sale yet. Join the waitlist to hear when it opens.
O2 Travel vs Ringo Light in one paragraph
Between the two, I find Ringo Light the cheaper way to get online in the US by a wide margin: $17.99 against about $131 for two weeks, $22.99 against about $281 for a month. O2 Travel earns its place through convenience that is real, because the phone keeps its own number, calls and texts carry on, and no eSIM slot is required. For a single day in transit I could not fault it. Once the trip stretches into a road trip or a working month, the maths and the speed cap send me to Ringo Light.
Price: the same trip at each
On 31 October 2026 I read O2's list, which has the United States among 75 destinations for the Travel bolt-on, sold at a fixed £7 for each day of use. Each charge covers 24 hours from the first call, text or data session. Fourteen such days come to £98, about $131, and thirty come to £210, about $281. The page offers no monthly version. For the sterling figures I used the ECB reference rate dated 30 October 2026, the newest on 31 October, at £1 = $1.34.
Ringo Light is priced in US dollars, and at checkout a UK buyer sees the amount in pounds before paying. Two weeks is $17.99 and 30 days is $22.99, one payment each. Against the bolt-on that is $113.01 less on a fortnight and $258.01 less on a month. A single day of O2 Travel already eats a large slice of a full Ringo Light trip, so I credit O2 with ease and not with cost.
Data and speed at each
O2 describes the bolt-on as having no usage limit, then caps speed at 2Mbps while roaming, and it mentions no fair use rule. At that rate I would expect rideshare apps, Google Maps on an interstate and WhatsApp to keep working. Uploading a day of photos from the Grand Canyon, a Zoom call, or a laptop tethered in a motel will feel stuck. Ringo Light gives unlimited data at full speed for every day, with nothing quoted per day. Fair use policy, see Terms.
Calls, texts and your own number
Your UK number stays live with O2 Travel, and the page says calls to the UK and within the US are unlimited. Calling a third country is billed at ordinary roaming rates, and merely receiving a call or text does not trigger the day charge. Codes from a US bank app or a UK card issuer therefore still reach you, and I count that as a clear O2 win. Ringo Light has no number of its own. Calls run over data apps, and your number stays on your own SIM next to it.
Setup and billing
Add the bolt-on by texting TRAVEL to 23336, or in My O2, where you can also see if it is already on your account. The £7 begins when you first call, text or use data and does not count toward a Spend Cap. I would do it before the flight, so arrival at JFK or Newark is uneventful. Ringo Light is sent by email after payment and installs from one QR scan on Wi-Fi at home. Turn it on for data once you land. It needs an eSIM phone.
What Ringo Light is, and what it is not
Ringo Light is the data eSIM Ringo sells to fund the full Ringo, a single plan for every country. I write for Ringo, and I have tried to treat O2 fairly. For the US it comes in three trips, 7 days at $7.99, 2 weeks at $17.99 and 30 days at $22.99, all unlimited data at full speed, paid once with no renewal.
It does not come with a phone number, so it cannot replace your O2 line for calls, and your handset needs an eSIM slot. O2 stays the tidier choice for staying on one bill. Ringo Light is the lower cost for the same weeks across America, which is why it is my pick.
I compared the travel eSIM brands for the United States at /blog/best-esim-for-usa. The card to buy Ringo Light is further up this page, just after the side-by-side table.
Which to pick
- ✓Ringo Light, for a US trip of more than a few days. Pay $17.99 or $22.99 once for unlimited full speed data, instead of £7 on each day the phone is used. I would do that.
- ✓O2 Travel, for one night near the airport. A single £7 day with no purchase and no install suits a short stop, and I would not bother with an eSIM.
- ✓O2 Travel, with a phone that lacks eSIM. The bolt-on rides on the plan already in the handset, so nothing else is needed.
- ✓Both, for a long stay with a work number. Ringo Light handles data and your own SIM answers the calls. That is how I would split it.
Pick by trip
I would buy Ringo Light at $17.99. The same fortnight on O2 Travel is £98, about $131, at 2Mbps.
Ringo Light at $22.99, with room to tether a laptop. O2 would be £210, about $281.
O2 Travel. I would take one £7 day, no setup, and your own number.
I would stay on O2 Travel, or buy Ringo Light for data and leave your own SIM in for calls.
Use O2 Travel, because Ringo Light needs eSIM support.
Frequently asked questions
How we compared, and our sources
O2, Ringo Light, European Central Bank, Ringo Light
We priced O2 and Ringo Light for United States on 31 October 2026, all on the same day, in US dollars. Each rival's price comes from its own website where it showed dollars, otherwise from an esimdb.com listing, and every source and its date is listed below. Ringo Light's prices come from the catalogue our checkout charges.
We compare the trips people actually book: a week, two weeks and a month of unlimited data, and a 10 GB bucket. We read each brand's fair use and speed rules and quote them as the brands state them. We did not run speed tests, so this page makes no speed claims for any brand.
Ringo Light is our own product. We put it in the table on the same terms as everyone else, and where a rival is the better buy the page says so.
Left out: Other eSIM brands. Airalo, Holafly, Saily, Nomad and Ubigi also sell US data and are priced side by side at /blog/best-esim-for-usa. My question here is narrower. It is your O2 plan, or Ringo Light. Left out: O2 roaming outside the bolt-on. O2 sells other roaming terms for Europe and charges standard rates anywhere off its list. I priced only the O2 Travel bolt-on, since that is what the page offers for the US. The separate O2 roaming page returned not found on the day, so I did not lean on it.
- O2: www.o2.co.uk/international/o2-travel, O2 Travel bolt-on page, read 31 October 2026: £7 a day, charged for the 24 hours from first use, unlimited data capped at 2Mbps while roaming, unlimited calls to the UK and within the destination; the destination is on the page's list of 75 countries. The roaming page at o2.co.uk/international/roaming returned not found on the same day
- Ringo Light: ringoesim.com/usa, the catalogue the checkout charges, read the same day
- European Central Bank: www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/eurofxref/eurofxref-daily.xml, euro reference rates of 30 October 2026, the latest published on 31 October 2026, used for the dollar figures (£1 = $1.34)
- Ringo Light: our own catalogue, the prices the checkout charges on 31 October 2026.
Written and priced by the Ringo team. Prices change often; if you spot one that has moved, tell us through the contact page and we will update the table.
