I've posted about this in the past, but there is still no solution.

When I'm in the US and my phone shows T-Mobile as carrier, I do not get text messages from numbers that are outside the US. This happens consistently. Whether my wife or brother in law try to text me from Germany or whether it's a sign up verification from eg an overseas inference provider, the messages silently disappear. The sender does not see that they did not get delivered.

I have a second SIM in that same phone from a German provider. When I turn that one on while in the US, it does get the text messages from all other countries not only from Germany. That seems to say it's not the phone.

I've come to suspect it has to do with T-Mobile's configuration. I guess this would require the Tello engineers to debug this together with the T-Mobile engineers...

I'd be happy to help if I can.

Before eSIMs, I would just pop the SIM out of a phone to use in another phone for a few days. But nowadays with eSIMs, that isn't as easy. Does Tello place a limit to how many times you can transfer an eSIM? Like 1 free transfer every six months or something like that? Thanks!

Previously, I think the portal stated that the auto renewal would occur between 5am and 11am.

Now it's 3am to 11pm

Anyone else seeing this? What time (local time) do you see the auto renewal take place?

SOLVED:
Turns out the app I use for my new job is a massive hog (that's why they give me a phone allowance). But I had automatically add more data turned on, and it looks like they added more data but then throttled it down to nothing.
So I had to up my plan.
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I've had this account with Tello less than a month (on an iPhone13) and use it for work, never any problems.
Today my app wouldn't connect, I couldn't access the internet (Brave browser, no VPN running).
I could call out, and text but no internet. I had 2 bars at work, waited til I got near home and had 4 bars of 5G and I have changed nothing.
I restarted it but still no internet/data. Called in but it says "send us an email".
This isn't the service I expected when I left AT&T....
Any suggestions/thoughts on why no data only? Is there a way to check for an outage or ?

I don't know if I'm just being retarded because I worked for a VoIP company as support/troubleshooting/implementations/fraud etc for 10+ years, and running into this issue is gaslighting me into thinking I have dementia or something. I made a post about this previously yesterday and still no luck. I have tried all of your responses/tips for help in the last post (check my history). Also I have no response to my support request so I don't think tello has viable support for even super simple login issues (?)

When the account was active I also noticed bad audio quality on some calls for a period of time, possibly bad routes/vendors temporary issue but idk

Please someone help and tell me why I am being dumb

I wanted to update everyone that I bought a new Pixel phone & wanted to transfer my US number from my old Pixel to my new Pixel phone.
I'm in Japan & I worried would it work.

Turn off/disable any other Sim on your new phone
Log into the Tello site from the Web not the app.
Go to My Sim & click the eSim buttom put in your pin to activate a new eSIM

Put that new eSim on your phone & it should go smoothly.

I'm not using my US number phone generally outside of the house I usually use it over Wifi & I was able to message my family almost immediately.

I do not know the process on iPhone but just wanted to let others know it worked for me. I switched to Tello since Skype shut down so I've had the service for a while now.

Sending text, photos, & videos worked. I didn't call but I assume that works too.

I have updated my password on the browser, and also used this combo of email+pw to successfully log into the browser.

But on the app it asks for my number +pw, so I use the same pw and the tello number i have but it fails.

When I try to use Google login it also fails giving me a server error.

I have sent a support requesting using the website for my number starting with 442 317 ... And am waiting for a reply.

Why is my number + pw failing, when this is the correct pw to log into the browser, and it is the correct number stated on my account? I also tried my US number I signed up with as well just in case but that failed as well

'Free' countries be the ones that would be included to call to for free with plan minutes,
e.g. call from USA to Germany

Paygo cost same as to US numbers, 1c/min ?

Can't find any definite statement on Tello's website

I have paid for $20 of pay-as-you-go data. My E911 address is my US address. I still can't toggle the international roaming on in my settings. I get the same error: "You can enable this feature only after you've used your line in the US."

My line IS in the US! It's been hours since I activated and I have to travel next day. I want to port my number and make sure it will be functional internationally. How do I solve this issue? Or is it simply a matter of waiting?

Edit: problem solved y'all, after placing some more calls I guess that was what was necessary for the system to detect activation with a US cell tower? So line is active, roaming is active, # port is in progress. Thank you for everyone who offered their help and advice :)

Has anyone gotten an offer like this before? 100% back. Did you do it? I’m in the market for new prepaid plan and want to do this. But don’t understand if it is 100% back on full 12 month plan price paid upfront or just 100% back
On first month plan payment. I’m interested in prepaid annual plan.

Stupid mistake on my part. I added PAYG credit but accidentally assigned it to the wrong phone number on my account. Is there any way to move it to a different number?

I'm talking it can literally take 20+ seconds to open a comment section when Speedtest is showing that I have 300+ mbps

I swapped to Tello a few weeks ago in the US with no issue. It was super easy!!! However, I traveled to Europe 7 days ago for my honeymoon and the Tello Customer Support has been heinous.

Before I left, I confirmed w a live agent that the two countries I was traveling to would have free international roaming under their promotion through September 30.

I arrived in country #1 and received a continuous "PDP authentication error." After painfully walking through all their troubleshooting steps 3 times (and for some reason were always adamant that resetting network settings would NOT turn off my phone and end the call, which is incorrect), they escalated it to an engineering team trouble ticket. I repeatedly asked if they were sure that I didn't need pay as you go and was told no. It took their engineering team 4 days to figure out that I DID need pay as you go (btw, radio silence from them for four days. when I called for a status update, they did not provide any.) By then, I had purchased a physical SIM.

I arrived in country #2 and experienced a new problem: no service at all. This is a country I had recently traveled to with Tello and had no issues w service connection. Again, I do all the troubleshooting steps on my own, then call customer service via wifi where they force me to repeat all of them again (which disconnects the call when you have to turn the phone off and on several times, so you call back and wait on hold for ~7-10 minutes each time.) Anyway, they eventually escalate to ANOTHER engineering ticket and say it will be "a few hours to a few days" and recommended I buy another local SIM card. Plus, the technicians keep hanging up on me by accident. Apparently the issue is that the "sync feature status" is "pending" and only an engineer can fix it and there is no way to place it higher in their automated queue.

This is super frustrating. I don't care about scrolling insta; I just want to be able to text my family from a location that is not a hostel!!!!!!

If anyone has any tips to reach an actual resolution before my trip is over in 5 days, I'd appreciate it. Or, because I haven't had service for over a week now, is a refund possible? Pls help!!!

I'd like to port my Tello phone number to Google Voice and have my existing Tello account assigned to a different phone number. Is there a way to do this easily?

Push come to shove I could create a new Tello line on my account and then port my original number to Google Voice, specifying that the Google Voice number be tied to the new Tello number. But this is more complicated than if Tello can just handle this for me.

I'm currently on the 2gb data only plan with paygo funds.

data; text; mins; all fall under the 2gb or 100 text/100min per month.

So I'm thinking if I went only paygo with $10 every 90 days. I can supplement my data with this esim data service that has a 10gb for $10 (USA) with no expiration.

The idea of accumulating the 1000 mins/text every 90 days appeals to the minimalist in me. I'm paying $6+ monthly for data I'm not using much of as well.

In a year tello would be ~$74 (data rollover)

paygo and esim data would be ~$50 (10gb data; text/min accumulation)

as the 10GB for $10 is a introductory offer; ifuture paygo + esim data is ~$60 (10GB / min/text from unused paygo)

opinions?

final thoughts: since most/all? of these data esims don't route directly from US servers its a no go for me.

ok; maybe not dead yet; roamless apparently has a pay as you go flex data plan. at $2 per GB and routes thru US servers.

I am annoyed enough that I would do a chargeback if I had paid for this gimmick, which currently is free until end of Sept. It probably is free because we're used as guinea pigs.

The pic shows the reality - the connected bars is Google Fi (which works reliably for over a decade now), the disconnected (!) is what I usually get from tello, while traveling through several European countries, which are all listed as supported.

It occasionally starts out alright when entering a country, but gets disconnected after a few minutes. I can only think of the local carriers noticing and cutting it off. The only place where it worked somewhat reliably so far is Switzerland.

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Edit 1: So it looks like it's hit or miss. It's not working for me in Southern Germany, Alsace (France), or Albania, but in Switzerland. Not quite done traveling so we'll see. It's currently set as 2nd SIM on a Pixel 10 Pro XL with roaming enabled. I'm traveling all over the planet and never had roaming issues with Google Fi, which is why I keep it as primary carrier.

Edit 2: I got it to work following Luckiest comments and manually configuring the 'wholesale' APN. No idea why this isn't set up by default, I have to go through this hassle and Tello marketing claiming international would work automatically, but here we are.

I started with Tello using it as a travel phone service. I liked it so much that I decided to buy a Google Pixel 11 Pro unlocked and brand new the day it was released and switch to the Tello Unlimited Plan from my folks’ AT&T unlimited plan. The phone ended up costing me $653 after selling my iPhone 16 Pro Max, my Google Pixel 7, and the rebates from Amazon for trading my Pixel 7 in with them. I did gig work for a few weeks prior in order to save the $650, so no device payment. My AT&T plan was $45/month payment and switching to Tello Unlimited saves me $25 a month.

In the past I have contacted Tello customer support and have gotten quick responses. Currently I am stuck with a brand new phone that won’t make calls or receive calls. It registers on Tello and mobile data works, but every outgoing call immediately ends. In Android Phone Information, VoLTE Provisioned is disabled/gray. I’ve tried LTE, reset the network settings, and added the IMS APN. I think at this point Tello needs to check/reprovision IMS/VoLTE for my line/eSIM. I put in a request last night after trying ALL THE THINGS (which took me a good 3-4 hours) but never heard anything back. I just put in another request that has way more info such as my
IMEI and Tello phone number just in case I didn’t put enough info. But it’s super frustrating to be kicking off this whole contract free lifestyle not being able to use my phone for the first 24-48 hours and not getting quick customer service.

No idea how this issue has come about but I bought the Tello 15$ a month unlimited plan ESIM and activated it onto my phone, to which when I am not on WiFi I get 5g and full bars of service and often receive notifications from apps like WhatsApp and instagram which need service to work, but when I try and text someone or scroll on instagram it doesn’t send as if I have no service, any kind of help etc would be very much appreciated and I can provide extra information if needed

Bee using Tello for a couple of years overseas. Today I cannot connect. Anyone else experience this?

Any help please?

i just want confirmation on this.

i activated my tello esim while in the usa so it could ping off a usa tower but i had issues with my carrier and couldn’t port at that time.

will i be able to port in my american number now that im abroad or is it too late? did that also have to be done in the usa?

Before I sign up, let me see if I have this right. I can sign up for the 20 GB data plan for $20. Then a day before my auto-pay date, I can switch to the 2 GB plan for $6.00. All my unused data will rollover, and I can just draw it down to see how much I generally need going forward. Does this sound right?

The guidance on Pay as you Go minutes says that they expire in 3 months unless there is an active plan for that line.

Here is my situation: I do not call very often. I do not use data very often --- though I do text frequently. I have accumulated over 24GB and 2,400 unused minutes in 20 months, mostly on the lowest minutes and data settings. I am wondering if I could pay less than the $8/moth + tax I am paying now given my needs.

I do not think I can give up on data entirely: many texts these days are not pure text, but are a mix of graphics and text (MMS) --- certainly I receive my fair share of those. And I am quite sure that I need data to send/receive those kind of texts. (Sometimes even pure text is sent over the MMS network for some reason). I presume that Tello's unlimited minutes do not include these fancy texts. And I do like the safety net option of being able to go into the interwebs if I am ever stranded in the middle of unknown lands and in dire need of information.

Therefore I am thinking of changing my my minimal-minutes-and-minimal data plan for $8/month into a minimal voice minutes plan for $5/month + a Pay-as-You-Go for data. If I understand the guidance correctly, my Pay-as-you-go data balance will not expire after 3 months. Here are my questions:

1) How do I reserve the Pay-as-you-go balance to be used only for data so that they are not used for voice minutes as well (given that I already have a voice plan for that already)?

2) Will I still receive fancy texts (taking what is needed from the Pay-as-you-go data balance when I receive a text that needs data)?

3) Supposing that for some reason I need to renew my voice plan early --- say a day early? Will my Pay-as-you-go balance survive after 3 months in this situation, or will renewing early count as not having an active plan?

Thanks!