topic Re: France in Roaming

France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:50:16 GMT

Greetings

While in France with a UK registered mobile, I was unable to make calls to French numbers. I get a message telling me that calls are barred.

I am now home and still can't!

I can use my wife's phone to do this - mine is on EE Small Business and hers is EE Personal.

As far as I can see all appropriate Roaming settings are correct.

Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks.

Re: France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 13:51:55 GMT

As an addendum - I did not take any of EE roaming add ons - but neither did my wife.

Re: France

Schockwave — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:29:50 GMT

Hello @Navvyman ,

Welcome to the community,

Did you activate roaming on your account by texting ROAMING to 150 before going abroad? If not, that is why you were unable to make calls.

If you did, did you receive the welcome message from EE?

If you did, then doing a manual search for a network could help.

Re: France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:39:01 GMT

I didn't do this on either of the 'phones, but got the welcome message on both - I'm now sitting in my own home in the UK and my phone won't let me phone a French number but my wife's will - all a bit of a puzzle!

Re: France

bristolian — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:01:08 GMT

If you received a welcome text, then you had a mobile network connection and were thus roaming.

Now you are in the UK using EE's radio network, you are no longer roaming - calling a French number is an international call and requires that your international call bar has been removed.

If that has not been removed, it may also have been the cause of your issues whilst roaming.

Re: France

XRaySpeX — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 15:03:25 GMT

Are you on contract or PAYG? If PAYG, International Calls are chargeable & so you need sufficient PAYG credit to make them.

Re: France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:10:32 GMT

Thanks for that - both on monthly Contract - mine Small Business, my wife's is a personal one.

Re: France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:13:03 GMT

Thanks - is that something I need to get EE to fix for me? It all used to be OK when I worked abroad but the contract has been tweaked since then so may have fallen by the wayside.

Re: France

bristolian — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:22:40 GMT

FYI you have a short time after posting to edit, negating the need for multiple replies.

International call bars are an account setting which EE-CS have access to remove/check. If you've been able to call internationally in the past, then it's unlikely to have been revoked... but never say never.

The only other fix whilst roaming would be to manually connect to alternative local networks - see if the symptoms disappear (thus local network related) or are consistent (thus likely account-level)

Re: France

Navvyman — Tue, 23 Sep 2025 18:12:12 GMT

Many thanks - I will set aside some time for a chat with EE! Not away again for a few weeks and I have a couple of workarounds with other SIMS,