topic Re: Cell phone service in Roaming

Cell phone service

Kettlewell1 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 04:36:47 GMT

No service abroad

Re: Cell phone service

Kettlewell1 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 04:35:09 GMT

Re: Cell phone service

Chris_B — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 06:55:16 GMT

@Kettlewell1 Do mean mobile phone insurance?or an actual phone cover as in a phone case ?

Re: Cell phone service

Katie_B — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:51:21 GMT

Good morning @Kettlewell1.

Thanks for coming here.

Did you activate roaming before leaving the UK?

Are you currently roaming outside of Europe?

Finally, could you please confirm if you received a welcome text when you arrived?

Speak soon,

Katie 🙂

Re: Cell phone service

bristolian — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 08:09:31 GMT

Your ability to get coverage abroad (which calls, texts & mobile data rely on) is dependent on roaming being activated - which allows your phone to connect to foreign networks.

Have you used your phone abroad previously, did you receive a welcome text message on first arrival abroad? These are good evidence of roaming being enabled if so. In these cases, manually cycling through all available local networks often resolves issues - toggling flight mode can have the same effect.

If not...On PAYG, roaming is auto-enabled once your phone is used in the UK first. On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this?

If you are on pay-monthly and now find yourself abroad without having enabled roaming, your only recourse will be to contact CS to request it activated. You can either contact +44 7953 966150 from another working phone, or +44 800 9566000 using a web-calling app over WiFi.