Full roaming

[Toppere31]

Hi, I’m on a monthly contract and have been since 2020. I have a ‘full roaming’ add on. Last year I was able to use my home allowance in Australia for £25 per month.
However this option wasn’t available to me this year when I went. I had pay £6 for a 24 hr pass and then buy a ESIM.
I didn’t try and activate it before I left the uk, would this be the reason I couldn’t activate it in Australia and also is ‘full roaming’ the same thing? TIA

[bristolian]

What is the specific "full roaming" add-on that you have?

It may well be the global roaming facility that merely enables the use of foreign networks and thus the ability to obtain coverage abroad. What it's not, is any kind of billing add-on to reduce the cost of using your phone abrod.

You've referred to the £25 "Roam Abroad" pass which has now been superceded by a £25 weekly charge in Zone 1 - see https://ee.co.uk/roamingrefresh 

[Chris_B · Accepted solution]

@Toppere31  You say you didn’t try activate the eSIM until you left the UK,  you can not activate a sim/eSim out of the UK.  The sim/esim has to be activated in the UK as it can not have roaming enabled for it until it’s activated first.   Catch 22. 

[Toppere31]

Apologies for the late reply. The eSIM was purchased in Australia when I realised that I wasn’t able to get the “roam from home” package that I had the previous year on my visit to Australia, so that wasn’t a problem. What I couldn’t understand was why I couldn’t activate the ‘ roam from home’  or whatever it’s changed its name to. I’m now guessing I should have activated it before I left the UK.
As I understand it although it has changed names, the package should still be available to me as I’ve had my contract with ee since 2020. I did wonder if I should have tried to activate before I least the uk.
However now I’m back now and the only roaming add on I have is called “Full Roaming” and I was wondering if that is the same as “Roam from Home” which I had for £25 a month. What is Full Roaming add on?

[Toppere31]

HI, thanks for your replay. That what I trying to ascertain because it doesn’t explain what the bolt on is. I did read that if your contract was taken out before 2021, which mine was, you would still be entitled to the “Roam Further Pass” for £25 a month. So my question would be, is Full Roaming the same as Roam Further Pass? I’ll keep trying to get an explanation from EE but they don’t seem to know either. Maybe I’ll have to wait until I go to Australia again and try and activate it before I leave to find out what it entitles me to. 

[bristolian]

There are always two aspects to roaming.

Your SIM needs to be enabled to access foreign networks, and thus have coverage abroad. Without this, you can't roam and thus any attempt to reduce the cost of roaming via billing add-ons is futile & irrelevant.

You will often want a billing add-on to minimise the cost of using your phone abroad.

You've not answered the question of what exactly you are referring to as "full roaming", or provided a screenshot of what you're looking at. Without confirmation from you of this, everyone on this forum is guessing as to the answer.

[Toppere31]

 

 

Ok so this is my active add on “full roaming”(

Pic 1.)

when selected this is what the explanation is.(pic 2)

so I’m none the wiser as what Full Roaming is🤷‍♂️ does it apply to the eu or to countries outside the eu?

[bristolian]

Thanks for confirming, that's what we needed to see.

The clue is the wording "enables the full roaming experience" - this is the full global roaming facility which allows use of your phone on all foreign networks. See the first point in my previous post.

It is not a billing add-on and will not have any impact on the costs of using your phone abroad - you need to resolve that separately.

[Toppere31]

Thanks for that. It would seem no matter how long you’ve been in contract to EE, the ability to use your data, texts and minutes outside of the EU has now been removed for all. ie Roam Further Pass which I had. Time to look around for another provider I think or just buy a local eSIM. Thanks again for your help.

[bristolian]

There are a few very long threads in the roaming section of the forum discussing the various add-ons for non-EU countries, you might want to read through some of those. I know there's been some discussion on the scenario where you had an inclusive add-on covering the USA, New Zealand, Australia & Mexico, as part of your plan. That seems to be your issue.

That aside, the recent pricing refresh has introduced flat-rate pricing for the overwhelming majority of countries globally - thus enabling "better value" roaming in far more locations than previously. The downside has been that "dip-in" costs in the 4 countries mentioned above, has been increased.