Tesco Mobile roaming problems - no outgoing calls

welshgeorge

I have a sim-free Samsung Galaxy S5 currently on a PAYG with Tesco Mobile.
Recently, while on holiday in the Dominican Republic, I found that I was unable to make outgoing voice calls, though was still able to receive incoming (mostly spam) calls.I couldn't even get the Tesco top-up service. I could send and receive SMS without difficulty. In previous years with the same phone and at the same hotel I was able to roam without difficulty with Tesco.
On contacting the Customer Service people by email I got and tried various suggestions without success. Eventually they asked how long I was going to be there and said they had escalated the problem to their technical people.
Unsurprisingly, I heard nothing further from them. Upon my return to the UK, lo and behold, I was again able to receive incoming calls.
I guess the answer is to move to a different provider once I have used up my pre-paid credit.
In the meanwhile, has anyone else experienced this problem and, if so, were you able to resolve it?
Thanks in advance.
GL

Shrimply

I was in South America a few years ago (realises it was actually 6 and feels depressed at where the years have gone) with Tesco. I got a text at each place I arrived informing of what services I could use, which seemed to be a bit random.

I'm pretty sure that like you there was times that I couldn't make outgoing calls. I presume it is just network restrictions in certain parts of the world and that there is nothing that can be done.

Jon_01

You're at the mercy of whatever network you roamed on in the Dominican Republic. Tesco, or any UK network have no control.

It could be that, that network doesn't have the system that allows payg full access, it's not the same system that contract acc's use and some don't install it.

welshgeorge

It all worked perfectly 12 months ago with the same handset and PAYG Tesco account at the same resort. Not sure what could have changed in the intervening period.

J_B

welshgeorge wrote: »

It all worked perfectly 12 months ago with the same handset and PAYG Tesco account at the same resort. Not sure what could have changed in the intervening period.

I had a problem in Cyprus roaming with Three, but it was more along the lines of no service whatsoever.

It turned out that Three had changed their 'roaming partner network' to one that didn't work very well!

redux

Something that may or may not be relevant is that several years ago I found a page on the O2 website which showed that in some countries calls needed to be set up by callback, triggered by USSD.

This creates an incoming call to your phone, plus the outgoing call, and connects them together.

It may have been *111*destinationnumber# but I'm not sure if I remember the 111 correctly.

It was some time ago, and given how often websites are updated, and sometimes leave stuff out of newer versions, I have no idea whether that page still exists, or whether the method is still necessary. Try a search.

Edit: found an old thread on giffgaff forum, and sure enough the old O2 link is dead.

Rather than define the number in the string, it seems that dialling *111# to trigger callback was recommended, then you'd have a dialling tone when you answer.

I have no idea yet whether this method is still in use, or for which countries, so this post could be a waste of space ...

But this could hint at an alternate approach, if you still have incoming calls that work: think about using a separate callback provider.