Losing mobile service abroad, losing patience

[hellan]

Hi, I went abroad for two weeks, as soon as I landed and turned the airplane mode off, I couldn't connect to the network. No signal, no service no nothing. Then, after playing with my phone for several hours I managed to connect to the network somehow, but it would disconnect after EXACTLY 2 minutes (I timed it countless times, exactly 120 seconds and it's off). After factory resetting the phone couple of times, which didn't help at all, I managed to make it work by tweaking some of the APN settings and setting the connection to 2g preferred only. But even that didn't help long-term, it worked for a day or so, and now it stopped working again. Now I can get it to work by disabling and reenabling sim card with 2g preferred network, but it lasts for few minutes before disconnecting again. It's frustrating, infuriating and I can't even connect long enough to call support service. Please help anyone.

Thanks

[Chris_B]

@hellan  Did you or have enabled roaming from within your online account ?  You don’t need to change any APN settings on your device as this has nothing to do with that.  

[hellan]

yes, I have roaming enabled, and when it connects (for a minute or two) I have normal connection, internet, sms, calls, everything works.. It just disconnects after a minute or two and it's like there is no network.

[Chris_B]

@hellan  Have you restarted your device since you got there.  ?  Make sure you put the APN settings back on the device as they should be.  

[hellan]

I've restarted my phone countless times, even made a factory reset of the phone 2 times in last 2 days. APN settings are back at default now, but still no progress: it connects to the network when I turn the SIM card OFF and ON, but it stays connected for 2 mins max before disconnecting again

[Schockwave]

@hellan , have you checked in MY EE App or online via the web, that roaming is enabled and call abroad and premium rates are enabled? If not you will have to ring customer service via Skype on their free number, by clicking on the contact us and make sure that it is all enabled, just enabling roaming is not enough, call abroad and premium rates need to be enabled.

[hellan]

@Schockwave yes, I checked everything, everything is enabled and working. However, I realised something now - it must be because of the network that the sim card is registering to - in the country I'm in there are 3 available networks - it automatically connects to a certain one that keeps disconnecting after a minute or two.. I now manually connected to another network and now it works. The problem is - it's not always allowing me to register to a network manually, it just says "unable to register". After 10 tries, it worked, but if it gets disconnected again, I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to reconnect.

[Schockwave]

@hellan , thank you for your reply, not sure why you are having this problem, not sure there is anything EE can do or be responsible for this, as you are in another country, whose network you are connecting. Are you able to switch automatic connection off and so it only connects to the one you have manually selected?

[hellan]

@Schockwave I really don't want to experiment at the moment as it's working. Right now it's connected through manual selection and it works, but I'm not sure if it's going to be able to stay connected to this network throughout my stay here (it can often lose a signal and try to reconnect to another signal, I just hope it will be able to reconnect to the same provider).

[Schockwave]

@hellan , it should connect to the same provider, I would have thought, just like wifi does, if you are choosing a manual connection, although I have never had to do this, myself, so good luck and enjoy your stay abroad.