Roaming in US, unable to send/rx text msgs, data ok.

[RH_yorkshire]

Hello, we arrived in the US on Thurs and have have the Roaming Addon (contract), did the Roam to 150 thing, got a reply that all was good.  Upon landing in Atlanta, our iPhone wouldn't acquire a service, SOS only...power cycled and it did finally acquire the AT&T network for roaming.  Now in Kentucky, and it's still on AT&T.    However, the signal strength bars have never illuminated (all 4 are greyed out), even though it displays AT&T 4G and mobile data.

I have also tried the Manual Network selection thing, and the phone will not sync up with any of the other networks available (Tmobile, Verizon, Sprint, etc).   It will usually not even sync up with AT&T when manually selected, but will sync in Automatic.

Last night, upon logging into a website, it required a One Time Passcode sent to my UK cell, that text never came in.   I tried to send a text to a relative with an Android phone (ie NOT and iMessage) and it will not send.   Also tried to call my daughters UK cell number and the call never went through.

Why is my Roaming only working for Data, and not for Text or Calls - and how can I fix it?

[Leanne_T]

Hi @RH_yorkshire 

Thanks for coming to the community. 

Could you try restarting your phone and then trying a manual network search again, can you connect to any of the available networks? 

Speak soon. 

Leanne.

[RH_yorkshire]

Hello,
Thanks for the reply.
Restarted and only change is that I can sync with AT&T in Manual Network selection now, before it only found AT&T on Automatic.
I tried all 4 other providers in Manual, nothing more than SOS Only. I went into Airplane mode between each switch to force a fresh connection….no joy.
AT&T signal bars are still greyed out, but I have a strong 4g signal, with SpeedTest results >90Mbps (phone WiFi off, mobile data only). That’s better then my wifi at home in Yorkshire!

What’s next?
Ric

[Leanne_T]

Thanks for trying @RH_yorkshire 

If this has not worked, we would need to get this looked into and check your account is set up fully for roaming. To do this you would need to call us from another phone or a VoIP service such as Skype. 

You can find our contact information, including an international number, on our get in touch help page.

Leanne. 

[bristolian]

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@RH_yorkshire wrote:

Hello, we arrived in the US on Thurs and have have the Roaming Addon (contract), did the Roam to 150 thing, got a reply that all was good.  Upon landing in Atlanta, our iPhone wouldn't acquire a service,

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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. You mention not getting coverage, but then quote "having a strong 4G signal" with mobile data ability - this appears contradictory.

On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this? If roaming is enabled, then manually connecting to alternative networks is the usual remedy for local service issues.

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 0798586 using a web-calling app such as Skype over WiFi.

[RH_yorkshire · Accepted solution]

ok...thanks for all the help. I called EE Tech Support yesterday (and Billing) - fortunately had my daughters UK phone (also EE) which was roaming properly - between them over a 15minute call they figured out that there was a setting in my account that was preventing "full" roaming (ie mobile data good, but no text to my UK number).   They ticked taht setting, reboot phone, and the queued up text messages came in.  Also, the signal strength bars for AT&T were illuminated as expected vice all greyed out.

issue resolved, eventually.