Europe Roaming After June 2017

Terry98

I have just been to Europe for a couple of days for the first time since June and mistakenly assumed my phone would roam for free.

It appears some mobile networks automatically allow roaming and some only allow it after you have rung them up to asked them to allow roaming. I am most probably the last to find this out but I am posting this just in case anybody else has the same problem.

https://talkmobile.co.uk/help

https://help2.talktalk.co.uk/using-talktalk-mobile-abroad

Ian011

Was this a case of roaming not working or was this a case of unexpected charges for usage while roaming?

pmduk

Customers have always had to activate roaming, this is unlikely to change with the new EU roaming rules.

boatman

Ian011 wrote: »

Was this a case of roaming not working or was this a case of unexpected charges for usage while roaming?

I presume roaming wasn't activated.

Varies from company to company as whether the sim is automatically set up to roam, some are, some aren't. The last Three contract I received a few months back was set up to roam, didn't need to ask.
Some ask for a £50 deposit.

eDicky

There's no differentiation of roaming enablement for European or Global, it's either on or off. So nothing to do with the new EU pricing regulations.

Terry98

Thanks for the replies.

I wrongly assumed roaming was automatically activated on my Talkmobile contract Sim and it was not. Talkmobile advise you should ring them before you travel to activate it. The same applies to Talktalk mobile.

As has been pointed out above 3 sims are already activated for roaming and I understand EE are also activated so you don't have to do anything before you travel.

Because I was only away for a couple of days and also had a Mifi with a 3 data sim in it I did not incur any extra charges. I will ensure roaming is activated before my next trip to Europe!

Leodogger

I am in Spain for a few months and my text messages have stopped working. I have attempted to contact T Mobile without any success at all. Their online message service doesn't recognise my phone no or my password and their online chat service only supports EE and Orange customers so T Mobile ones can go hang apparently! Yet I can log onto my account on line and top up with both my phone no. and password ! I rang their CS in the UK and their automatic "robot" said it didn't recognise my phone no which should start 07 and have 11 nos. and my phone has both, tried several times without success.

My question is have the EU rules changed how long you can use your PAYG phone to text from abroad and is T Mobile now the most useless mobile phone supplier on the planet?

unforeseen

If you are phoning from Spain then they will see your number prefixed by an international code which drops the leading zero so 14 digits altogether

Leodogger

How do they know I am calling from Spain when I had already gone through ringing their call centre and was going through their Option Nos., so pressed "1" and then I only input my actual mobile phone no.? Also I wasn't using my mobile phone to ring them I was using Skype on my computer.

unforeseen

JWhite wrote: »

How do they know I am calling from Spain when I had already gone through ringing their call centre and was going through their Option Nos., so pressed "1" and then I only input my actual mobile phone no.? Also I wasn't using my mobile phone to ring them I was using Skype on my computer.

I was responding to

I rang their CS in the UK and their automatic "robot" said it didn't recognise my phone no which should start 07 and have 11 nos. and my phone has both, tried several times without success./QUOTE]so it sounds like the automated system is responding to the Skype number rather than any details you enter

Leodogger

You may be right, I just hate that you never get to speak to a real human being when the system doesn't recognise your details either on the phone or online on their messaging service but it recognises them on your account online to top up ! Amazing eh ?

Since posting, I have since been told that since the EU stopped roaming charges being made by mobile cos. that they only allow you 90 days to use PAYG texting and then they put a block on your account. Don't know if that is true but perhaps someone else does?