Keep your AT&T number active while abroad

AT&T is the network whose answers we could only half read. Its suspension pages exist, they load, and they render their content with a script, so what arrives to a reader in a browser is not what arrives to anything checking the text.

What we did verify

Two things come through in plain text, and both are worth having. AT&T confirms that a suspension for personal reasons exists at all. Its suspend service page groups the reasons as "military deployment, disaster relief, or personal reasons", and for services other than mobile it states that "you can request a vacation hold after your AT&T service has been active for at least 30 days. Keep in mind, there's a monthly fee associated with it."

For mobile specifically, the same page sends the reader to a separate wireless article rather than stating the terms itself. That article, Suspend wireless service or block a device, loads but delivers almost no readable text: its frequently-asked-questions section is populated after the page runs.

What that means for the numbers

Four of the five cells above are empty, and the reason is specific rather than general. The monthly fee is confirmed to exist; its amount, the maximum suspension length and the treatment of device installments are not confirmed by anything we could read. A search engine summary will offer figures for all three. None of them is the carrier's own page, so none of them belongs on this card.

The pattern is worth naming because it recurs across carriers: the marketing and support sites serve JavaScript applications, while the regulatory and terms documents serve plain text. For AT&T we found the readable documents for other products and not for wireless suspension. The China Telecom card records the opposite shape, where the agreement was readable and the product page was not.

Before you fly

• Treat the monthly fee as confirmed and the amount as unknown, and get the figure from AT&T directly before you rely on it.
• Ask the two questions this card cannot answer: how long a wireless suspension may run, and whether device installments continue during it.
• If the suspension is only for a few months, compare it against keeping the cheapest plan active, which is the route T-Mobile's card prices out in full.
• The broader comparison, including what Verizon will and will not do, is on keep your US number while abroad.