Roaming abroad

[Cobyallen]

I’m currently in Africa, Malawi and my EE sim is saying no service. Last year I was helped when this happened but I forgot how. Can someone help as I need to turn it on to make and receive calls 

[bristolian]

Did you use the exact same SIM in Malawi last year? Have you ever requested that the roaming facility was removed from your SIM?

Try manually connecting to each available local network in turn.

[Cobyallen]

I’m currently using a different a sim right now

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

In which case... Regardless of any billing add-on, your ability to get coverage abroad (which calls, texts & mobile data rely on) is dependent on roaming being activated - which allows your phone to connect to foreign networks.

On PAYG, this is auto-enabled once your phone is used in the UK first.
On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this?

If you are on pay-monthly and now find yourself abroad without having enabled roaming, your only recourse will be to contact CS to request it activated. You can either contact +44 7953 966150 from another working phone, or +44 800 9566000 using a web-calling app such as Skype over WiFi.