Phoning uk from abroad

[JuliaT31]

I am currently on holiday in Barbados and trying to ring home in the UK. My husband and daughter both have phones linked to my account and none of us can make calls. My husbands worked 2 days ago but now none of us can call. We have tried buying the 24 hour roaming pass, turned on roaming and all the other things we’ve been told to try. Any help? Can’t get through to EE

[Chris_B]

@JuliaT31  If it worked 2 days ago in that location it sounds like it’s a local network problem.   But have you tried just restarting the device ? or manually trying to connect to a different network

[XRaySpeX]

Did you receive a Welcome text upon arrival?

As you are on contract, did you activate roaming on your EE a/c before you left UK by texting ROAMING to 150? Having a roaming billing add-on doesn't of itself activate roaming on your a/c. Having roaming activated on your EE a/c, not just on your device, is crucial to using your contract SIM abroad.

Often just rebooting the phone is the simple remedy. Also try selecting a network manually rather than auto.

Otherwise if you are on contract you need to call CS to get your roaming activated. Try calling CS on the Freephone no. in my sig. on Skype over WiFi. It should be free.

[bristolian]

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@JuliaT31 wrote:

I am currently on holiday in Barbados ...My husbands worked 2 days ago but now none of us can call. We have tried buying the 24 hour roaming pass, turned on roaming and all the other things we’ve been told to try.

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Roaming is an account-level setting that enables your SIM to connect to foreign networks, it's not a phone setting. I suspect you're confused with "data roaming" which just allows mobile data use when already roaming.

If you had genuinely disabled roaming, your phones would not now have coverage outside the UK. If your husband's phone worked 2 days ago, his clearly has roaming enabled. What are the "other things" you've been told to try - can you be specific?

Have your phones ever had network coverage abroad? You need that to make or receive calls, send or receive text messages or use mobile data. You should receive a welcome text message when you first arrive abroad, as much a test of roaming working as providing information on charges. Did you?