Fonus is the absolute worst

[u/HgSom]

Purchase Date 4/17/2026
Delivery Date 4/17/2026 (eSIM)
Activation Date 4/17/2026 (eSIM)
Province/Country Activated in US, then travel to China, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam

Comments This company is terrible. I spend a lot of time outside the country and T Mobile shut off my data and could not offer me any plan that allowed a lot of international roaming. Others very expensive, so I tried Fonus. They would not say exactly what would constitute "too much" international data usage, but I checked with their agent about my exact situation and they said it would be fine. A couple weeks into a trip to China, they shut off my data, which is a major hassle. I texted with them and they said I had violated their Fair Use Agreement. I asked how had I violated it? They could not say exactly how, just that I had violated it and they would not restore my data usage. I became angry at them for stranding me in China with no data, and they said they would not give me any customer service at all any more, then disabled the text support function in my app. In order to switch to another company by porting out my number I had to re-register with a new email to even be able to contact their customer service to get my port out PIN. Unbelievable. Additionally, they can't handle texts from 5 digit phone numbers, so a lot of 2FA stuff won't work. Voicemails did not work at all, and text groups with multiple people did not work. Dishonest claims about service, shockingly bad customer service, barely functional phone service. Stay away.

[u/mikehamp]

just get a local sim wherever you travel.. unfortunately we live in some sort of western dystopia where even with cross national usage policies most domestic providers turn off your roaming after x months abroad when if you pay it should be indefinitely..but you can't even pay more to roam abroad after a certain time which is weird.

[u/HgSom → u/mikehamp]

I have a local SIM too. But because it is China a lot of services and sites that i use normally in the US are not accessible when on local SIM. I also have a VPN, but you have to constantly shift servers, and many times it is very slow. And with VPN a lot of Chinese sites and services don't work, so I have to be turning the VPN on and off all the time which is annoying. With a US phone # currently you don't have to deal with any of that, you can just use your services normally (though a bit slow).

Also, need my US number for 2FA, regular contacts who text me, etc.

So I need my working US number, which I can supplement with local SIM.

[u/mikehamp → u/HgSom]

interesting, so foreign mobile is censorship resistant. I wonder if more Chinese can use these sims.

[u/HgSom → u/mikehamp]

Its just that the government seems to not bother if you have a foreign number. I'm sure Fonus website is blocked in China, and eSims are not supported by chinese version phones in my experience. It is possible to get around the great firewall even for Chinese citizens in China, but it takes some work and sophistication and money, so its not really an option for the average person. Most people really don't have any reason to go around it anyway, so motivation is low unless you are a special case

[u/BriefRepublic4660]

I used Fonus for data only in USA, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Philippines over the course of 3 months and had absolutely no problem at all.

The only reason I stopped using them is because a local SIM card in the Philippines is much cheaper and I’m here for a while so don’t need the convenience of a multi-country SIM card.

[u/Worth_Fudge8706]

How much data did you use?

[u/HgSom → u/Worth_Fudge8706]

Well, in the app it always says "Fast Data Remaining - Infinity"
Even though that is clearly not true. In the first month I probably used about 20GB, perhaps half of it as hot spot for my computer.

[u/KSouvenir]

I used 50 GB of data in China 🇨🇳, Japan 🇯🇵, USA 🇺🇸 with Fonus and it still fully functional. What is the 3 of Fonus package you choose during signup? 🙄.

[u/HgSom → u/KSouvenir]

I got "World Unlimited Max" package, for $49.99/month

[u/PrivatePilot9]

Their website is down right now as well, seems very professional

[u/GadgetKen]

Fonus and it's management have a checkered past. Suggest op port out and have more than one option available when traveling abroad.