Two customers bought a US phone number plan expecting it to give them mobile data while travelling outside the United States. It does not, and it never did — but the way our plan page explained that made it easy to misread.
The note used to open with the workaround: "using this outside the US? Use a VPN." Read quickly, that says the plan works abroad and here is how. The restriction itself came second.
That is now the other way round. On the plans page and in the delivery email you receive after buying, a US number plan leads with the limit:
- Mobile data works only inside the United States. There is no international roaming on these lines.
- A VPN cannot fix it. A VPN needs a working internet connection before it can run, so it cannot create one.
- Calls and texts still work abroad over Wi-Fi, with a VPN set to a US location — that part is unchanged, and it is still explained underneath.
If what you actually need is data while travelling, a travel eSIM for the country you are visiting is the right product, and it is on the same page.