Roaming doesn't work in Europe - what are the alternative options?

[Maytoot]

Hello,

I was told prior to going to Germany that my roaming would work, I setup roaming before I left, did all the steps and it didn't work once in Germany. I folllowed avdvice online and nothing worked. I get the feeling that the network just doesn't work in Europe . I'm travelling to Europe again and I want to make sure I can acess the Internet  and make calls while I'm away can I buy an add on that's guaranteed to work? 

[bristolian]

The network-level permission for your SIM to connect to foreign networks is not obtained by having add-ons, these merely reduce the cost of roaming abroad.

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?

[Maytoot]

Yeah I did and it still didn't work - I'm guessing there's no way to use it in Europe then. That's pretty dissapointing 

[XRaySpeX]

There's a diff between texting ROAMING alone & texting ROAMING PASS. Which did you do in the UK?

[bristolian]

I'm assuming you're on pay-monthly, did you receive text confirmation of roaming being enabled - can you post a screenshot? What happened when you tried manually connecting to each local network? Have you been able to connect to networks in other countries?

If all EE users were genuinely unable to use their phones in Europe, this forum would be absolutely chock-full of complaints - that's not the case.

[Maytoot]

Yeah and yeag I did. 

I tried a few different networks manually when I was there and none of them worked - I couldn't phone 150 to fix it becuase it wasn't working.
When I used my phone in Europe and the US I had no issues previoulsy but the last time I'd used it in Europe would have been 2023, maybe earlier.

There's quite a lot of posts about it not working in Europe on here and on reddit - particularily in Germany so maybe it's a localised thing

[Maytoot]

I texted roaming and got a message saying my phone was set to roam in any country 

[James_B]

Did you receive a welcome text from EE when you arrived in Germany, @Maytoot?

Had you purchased a roaming pass?

Do you have a spend cap on your account?

James

[Maytoot]

Yeah I did recieve a text

No I didn't purchase a pass, is there a pass for Europe?

No I don't

[James_B]

Hi @Maytoot,

Yes, please see How Do I Get the Roam Abroad Pass? | Roaming Help | EE for more details.

James