Mobile use outside EU

goodValue

Does your phone have an option to turn Roaming off completely, as opposed to Data Roaming? Turning Data Roaming off won't stop the phone connecting to foreign networks for calls/texts and probably voicemail will initially go to your phone and could be charged. 

It looks as though my phone only turns off Data Roaming, so I will use flight mode to stop incoming calls/texts.
I tried switching on wiFi after choosing flight mode, and this worked on my phone.

goodValue

No, to avoid charges when roaming it's probably best to disable voicemail with your network.

If I used flight mode for the time I was outside the EU, would voicemail be blocked, or would messages be saved on a server somewhere?

vacheron

goodValue said:

No, to avoid charges when roaming it's probably best to disable voicemail with your network.

If I used flight mode for the time I was outside the EU, would voicemail be blocked, or would messages be saved on a server somewhere?

All voicemails are kept on your UK phone provideers servers, so would still be stored / accessible even with your phone in flight mode or even switched off.

DullGreyGuy

vacheron said:

zagfles said:

Be aware that receiving calls, even voicemail, costs £1 a minute. It may be worth keeping the phone in flight mode for the entire holiday, you can turn wi-fi on in flight mode. That might even allow you to use wi-fi calling but not sure about that!

Another good reason to use the e-SIM option I mentioned above. You can completely disable your usual UK SIM while on the plane out so you can't receive expensive calls or accidently use out of region data but you can still use data messaging, whatsapp maps etc. if needed, and enable it again on the flight home.

Never seen any operator that charges you out of country for your phone ringing or receiving texts. The later is a contentious issue around here and no one to date has pointed to any terms that say you do. 

Personally would much rather see my phone ring and make a choice as if to answer it or not rather than have older friends/family being unable to contact me in an emergency. 

Its certainly not difficult to setup an iPhone to use data from one sim rather than the other 

wongataa

vacheron said:

Flight mode will physically disable all physical internal radio frequency transceivers, including Cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband, whereas with roaming turned off, the phone is simply told not to connect to any non-UK cellular network.

Airplane mode turns off the cellular functions of a phone.  It does not disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.