My first year of living abroad in France, I was quick to get a French phone number. Not only is it necessary for banking and other local services, but French phone plans are very reasonably priced. However, instead of ditching my American number, I decided to keep it as well. After all, I still had my American bank, and with 2-factor authentication everywhere these days, having an American number remained essential. I was on T-Mobile’s Experience Beyond plan at the time, which came with plenty of foreign data every month, and no up-charges for being abroad. Since my phone has a dual e-SIM capacity, like most new smartphones, living with two numbers was a no-brainer. Thus, my double number life began. 

While I was in the States this summer, my family and I decided to all switch to AT&T for our phone plans. I followed the crowd and thought the package would be comparable on the foreign front. I was wrong. On arriving back in France, I received a notification that I would be charged $10 a day while traveling. That simply was not going to work for me, so I turned off my American number and looked into what my options were after I finished unpacking. 

Solving the Problem

My research led me to find US Mobile and Tello, both cost-efficient mobile companies that boast good customer service and cell service while abroad. I opted for Tello, bought a cheap $6 a month plan to test it out, and tried to activate the new e-SIM. The prompts online and on my phone made it look pretty easy, but after a moment it was clear that my new number wasn’t going to activate on its own. I gave customer service a call on my French number and explained my situation. They were kind and regretted to inform me that an American number could only be activated on American soil. I wouldn’t be able to start using my newly purchased number until I was back in the States. 

I accepted the reality and swallowed my pride. After all, it was my own fault for not being more proactive about this from the outset. Thankfully, I had a trip planned back to the States in three months, so I transferred my iMessage account to my French number, asked all my friends and family to contact me through WhatsApp, and lived without my American number until my return. 

Once back in the US, I did my research, updated my account through Tello and activated the number that had been patiently waiting for me. I called another friendly customer service representative and asked her all the details about how foreign roaming would work on my account when I was back in France. I purchased the additional “buy as you go” credit that is necessary for their foreign travel (this was a $20 charge) and I took a deep breath — grateful to have my phone problems behind me, or so I thought. 

Rubber Meets the Road

When I landed in Paris a week later, I turned off airplane mode to find only my French number receiving service. The American number showed no signal. I searched in my phone settings and enabled roaming while abroad on the new number. Hours later, and still nothing. 

Frustrated, a week later I finally logged into my Tello account to see what the issue was. I scrolled through my settings to discover that I had missed checking the box to authorize foreign service while abroad. I checked the box, hit refresh, laughed at myself, and turned off my phone for the reset. When I turned it back on a few minutes later, there were those little bars I had been searching for the last three months. 

So far, I have had both numbers activated on my phone for a week. As my French phone plan is my primary source of data, I have only used five cents worth of data on my Tello plan. This is incredibly reasonable for a safety net in case I should need to receive pass keys or other identifying information that can only be sent to an American number. Overall, I am very pleased with my experience with Tello, minus the hiccups of getting my service activated in the beginning. 

Whether you are traveling abroad or starting a new life for yourself in France, be sure to do research on the allowances of your phone plan well before you land on the other side of the ocean. You may even consider activating a new SIM beforehand accordingly. We live and we learn, so with all this learning I guess I can be sure that I’m living. Do you have another American service provider that you’ve used abroad? We’d love to hear about your experience. 

Photo by Maxence Pira on Unsplash

Did you enjoy this article? TAIP is 100% reader-supported through tipping. If you want to leave us a tip of any amount it would be highly appreciated.  These tips help support our efforts to keep TAIP an ad-free environment. Just like at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.