topic Re: Roaming in South Africa in Roaming

Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:03:21 GMT

Good evening

I am in south Africa and received a text from EE that in order to keep my pay as you go sim I must make a call or send an sms. However I am unable to send an sms or make a call despite adding the add in call rest of world and sms. I have roaming turned on but when making a call it says calls are barred and sms says not delivered. Appreciate any advice thanks

Re: Roaming in South Africa

bristolian — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:16:49 GMT

Have you been able to use your phone in South Africa on this trip previously? This is to seek evidence that your roaming facility is known to work. What do you mean by "add in call rest of world"?

Potentially you have 2 issues...

1: PAYG lines are subject to the hibernation policy which requires chargeable usage at least once every 179 days to avoid hibernation - with a further 90 days grace before outright disconnection.

2: PAYG lines need to be first used on EE's UK network before roaming is enabled for use abroad.

If you have not satisfied condition "2", and you are currently abroad, then condition "1" is still required but you will only resolve your catch-22 by using your EE SIM in the UK to resolve issue "2"

You mention having "roaming turned on", but I suspect you're referring to the data-roaming menu option, which just enables data use whilst roaming. Roaming itself is an account-level setting enabling your SIM to connect to foreign networks - for voice-roaming, data-roaming & text-message-roaming. If you have previously used your ohone on a South African network then you can assume roaming is already enabled, and I'd suggest manually selecting a different local operator.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:38:59 GMT

Many thanks for your reply.
on this trip I haven’t used my phone for calling or sms but I do receive sms but can’t receive or make calls or sms.
I am nearing the time when I haven’t used the phone sim which is why I just received a message from EE to phone or sms in order to keep it active. My payg line has been used in the uk this summer though. Tonight I added an add on 200 text add on 1 day for £1 and rest of world minutes add on for £3. Hoped that would allow me to make a call or sms but it didn’t.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 22:40:21 GMT

I have used the phone abroad previously and the roaming partner here is Mtn which I am connected to an have signal with. Vodacom here shows low signal.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

XRaySpeX — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 01:36:55 GMT

@Sandradxb wrote:
adding the add in call rest of world and sms.

That is for making International calls & texts from UK, not for roaming.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Michael_D — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 08:12:23 GMT

Morning @Sandradxb

When you say you've used the phone abroad previously, was that with the pay as you go SIM, or was it on a contract that has then been changed to pay as you go?

Michael

Re: Roaming in South Africa

bristolian — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 10:23:41 GMT

@Sandradxb wrote:
I have used the phone abroad previously and the roaming partner here is Mtn which I am connected to an have signal with. Vodacom here shows low signal.

Is Vodacom's coverage usable? Can you use it to make or receive a call? Can you use it to send a text message?

You may find your phone steered towards MTN, but testing on Vodacom may help prove whether this is a local network issue or specific to your EE account..

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 18:53:28 GMT

I have used the EE sim on pay as you go here in South Africa

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 18:54:43 GMT

I tried with Vodacom to send an sms and make a phone call but it still says barred and not delivered. The Vodacom signal only shows 1 bar but MTN shows full bars.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

bristolian — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 19:39:37 GMT

@Sandradxb wrote:
I tried with Vodacom to send an sms and make a phone call but it still says barred and not delivered.

The number of bars is irrelevant for this test, this proves the issue is not specific to one local network.

Re: Roaming in South Africa

Sandradxb — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 20:49:55 GMT

Yes I will have to ring them to solve this situation I think. Thanks