HELP! Roaming in the UK???

[Salee]

HELP please : I’m in the UK, on dry land, on the North Norfolk coast but I keep getting a “Welcome to Maritime. Calls cost £3.00/min to make and £3.00/min to receive and texts 60p each. Picture messages cost 48p.” message.  How can I turn this off? I’m petrified that I’ll receive a few texts or calls and be charged these expensive rates. 

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

The symptoms suggest your phone has no coverage from your home network but is connecting to a maritime network instead, and advising you of charges for that. The text message notification is a warning of that and is working as intended.

The only certain way of avoiding charges in this scenario is to turn flight mode on or your phone off entirely, until you are back within coverage of EE's UK network or at least out of range of the maritime network.

Receiving text messages is free on any network - but any calls or outbound texts would be chargeable.

[Northerner]

Hi @Salee 

Turn off automatic network selection under settings and then connect to EE manually.

Thanks 

[bristolian]

Manual network selection will also work, but if you lose EE coverage in the future for any reason - I suspect you will need to manually reselect every time.

Unfortunately, these symptoms can happen in border areas where your home network has no service.

[Medeswell]

Just returned from East Runton & had same problem.  Ridiculous situation. Trying to actually speak to someone at EE to resolve is now impossible due to their 'exciting new system'! Thank goodness for Google - and flight mode!

[bristolian]

Enabling flight mode will prevent your phone from accessing any mobile network connection, that includes EE-UK. It's not a fix for the scenario discussed in this thread.

You will only be able to use your phone via WiFi-calling.

[Medeswell]

It is when in North Norfolk & having no idea what tariff I may be on. I didn't get notified about being on the maritime tariff until I got home. Luckily, I had no cause to make or receive any calls or send any text messages whilst in North Norfolk. For my own peace of mind I will continue to employ flight mode when in that location - it may be rather nice not to be contactable for a change in any case!