topic Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster in Roaming

EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

fArGo1911 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 07:22:45 GMT

So on my trip to Peru roaming was not working. No welcome message. Tried to select manual networks but without success. Since I could not receive an SMS I would not log in to the EE site to get in contact with customer service due to the two-factor authentication. Email must be a backu poption.

One week without mobile service

Back in Europe and Amsterdam, Mobile phone started working again.

Jumping on the next flight to Vietnam via Thailand. As soon we landed in Bangkok roaming was choppy ut it gave up. No welcome message and I got disconnected. Roaming not working.

Landed in Vietnam and no welcome message nor working roaming.

One week without working phone.

On my back home I landed in Thailand and roaming suprisingly worked. No welcome message.

So in summary, very disappointing service. Not only is EE not fullfilling its obligations. As a international traveller I relay on a working phone to conduct business and use service. But perhaps most importantly this is a security issue. Everyone needs a working phone and you are exposed when not having access to data nor being able to call your loved ones. And the fact that you can not log in to EE and contact support is not acceptable.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

Chris_B — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 08:11:46 GMT

@fArGo1911 As roaming did work but very sporadically you think EEs at fault, EE don’t control the roaming networks and the service you receive when using that network. Did you try a manual network search? Did you try just restarting the device?

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

fArGo1911 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 09:31:55 GMT

As a telecom professional I find your message extremely funny since you clearly have no clue what you are talking about. Why don't you you google roaming steering and then you come back to me. Hence I mentioned the fact that I never received any welcome messages. This is a network issue, not a device/settings issue.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

Christopher_G — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:06:32 GMT

Hi @fArGo1911

Welcome to the community.

If roaming is fully activated on your account, your phone should automatically connect to a network when you arrive. If this doesn't happen, the best course of action would be to manually search for an available network.

Once you connect to the network, you should receive the 'welcome' message that you mentioned. If that didn't happen, I recommend speaking with our Technical Support team so they can look into it for you.

Chris

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

Chris_B — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:04:25 GMT

@fArGo1911 a device sometimes tries to connect to the last network it was on when you go you to a different country so a restart or a manual network search can sometimes help. whenever you go to a different country it is always best just to restart the device. it basically refreshes the network connection.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

fArGo1911 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 14:31:18 GMT

Ok Guys,

What you are explaining to me is ABC in error finding. Of course I did all that. But when all networks give me the status forbidden what do you do? Please explain the erratic behaviour when I was in Thailand and it did not work and then coming back a few days later it did work.

Also explain to me why EE have no backup method sending two factor authentication via email so I can log in to my account. When you are abroad and have no roaming and want to contact support but you cant receive a SMS, EE have created at catch 22 situation, right?

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

fArGo1911 — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 04:26:48 GMT

Another disappointing roaming experience with EE. Currently in Costa Rica and when trying to get a roaming pass it is simply not working. This is day 4 without data. And no I was not on WiFi when trying to purchase the pass.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

fArGo1911 — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 04:48:13 GMT

Can somone at EE please explain to me, if you are abroad and have no access to roaming (No SMS, no voice, no data) and you want to log in to your account, how are you supposed to do that when you can't even receive an SMS?

Roaming pass is working so badly, you've created a catch 22. This has happened both in Peru, Cambodia, El Salvador and Vietnam.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

Chris_B — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 07:07:04 GMT

@fArGo1911 Are you on contract or PAYG ? If on contract did you enable roaming on your account by texting ROAMING to 150 before you left the UK ? Roaming is the ability to connect to a roaming network when abroad and this needs to be enabled in order to connect so you can purchase add ons to keep costs down. Add ons don’t enable roaming.

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

Jilly22 — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:21:31 GMT

Wish I'd read this before my daughter travelled to Peru - had roaming for first week, now nothing and we've tried everything. Rang for her and was asked 'can she call us' - err... guess what?!!!

Re: EE ROaming experience, it was a roller coaster

bristolian — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:24:51 GMT

@Jilly22 wrote:
Wish I'd read this before my daughter travelled to Peru - had roaming for first week, now nothing and we've tried everything. Rang for her and was asked 'can she call us' - err... guess what?!!!

If your daughter had roaming service during her first week in Peru, then self-evidently her UK network config is correct. Any issues later in her trip are likely to be one of....

1: Local network issue, toggle around them manually and see if symptoms alter. This will either resolve the issue if it's network-specific, or prove it off otherwise.

2: If symptoms are the same across all local networks, then a spend cap may have been breached. Also depends exactly what the symptoms are - for example, spend cap would impact the ability to undertake chargeable activity (calls & texts) while coverage is shown.

Statements such as "tried everything" are well-intentioned but not always helpful - it's often better to be specific about what was attempted. It's an unfortunate natural catch-22 if outbound calls are problematic, however the myEE app does allow live-chat for pay-monthly customers.