Roaming in Ireland - unable to receive calls from Republic of Ireland numbers

[PaulONeillNW]

Roaming in Ireland is "broken" for the past 5 months due to problems with EE's OCS (Online Charging System), and I wonder how many are affected by this (both Business & Consumer)?

1. We live close to the border, so are frequent visitors to the Republic, and have many connections on both sides of the border.
2. When roaming in Ireland, no-one calling from a Republic of Ireland number is able to get through. This has had somewhat profound impacts - both business and personally.
3. Equally, that failure is NOT communicated by way of an SMS notification, or missed call on the device. i.e. you will NOT know someone tried to call you, UNLESS they tell you after the fact. So the problem is hidden, you may be impacted without  realising it.
4. EE has been invetigating this since August 2024, and has now identified a problem with their OCS (Online Charging System) as preventing these calls.
5. EE are now on their fourth attempt to fix it (at Level 2 investigations and above) - from the end of October onwards, still no resolution in sight. The lmost recent attempt was to "re-profile their Online Charging System" - however that too does not seem to have worked.

What is most annoying about this, is that we have been paying for a service which doesn't work (5 months now as of January 2025), and the efforts we have had to go to in assisting EE to investigate this have been considerable.

I wonder if there are others impacted by this, who may not have realised it, because of the fact that they get NO failure notifications....

According to EE, this is affecting users in Ireland and Denmark at least...

[PaulONeillNW]

The problems are down to their OCS (Online Charging System) - it is stopping calls getting through at the outset - so this would  probably mean that anything like missed call / call waiting etc wouldnt work. On the "lots of promises" front - I hear you, been there already. It is a serious problem for exactly the reason you outline, people think you are ignoring them, when you have no idea they tried to contact you.

Did you raise a complaint? In which case they need to have a resolution within a certain period , otherwise it goes to the ombudsman as deadlocked.

We've been through that now on the  business phone (as that was under contract), and even prior to that, we also had a verbal offer from EE just to return the phone and exit the contract, however they won't discuss compensation until the problem is fixed or we leave.

The other (consumer) phone is now out of contract - so free to leave.

Basically we're in the last chance saloon with EE, waiting to hear about their latest "fix"

[Brendan196]

I'm soon out of contract but it's a pity because the coverage is good.
there are plenty of people who are having problems but if they don't roam
often it's not worth the hassle of reporting it. I find it hard to believe
that a team can't fix it in 4 months. I'd hoped a business contract would
work but obviously not. Thanks for your information.

[PaulONeillNW]

Its been broken since August '24 - i.e. 6 months now, apparently when EE introduced the new Online Charging System (OCS) which was intended to eliminate people getting billed for old calls when roaming, when in fact it has stopped calls getting through entirely. 

I expect there are LOTS of people who are affected by this - but dont realise it, particularly if they only roam occasionally. 

The fact that calls from the UK will get through, but not RoI calls (when someone is roaming) would probably mask the problem for many., who would just put some calls not getting through down to network coverage issues - when it has nothing to do with that.

[Brendan196]

But it will work maybe 1-3 days per month which is strange. If you only
occasionally roam you might not know also it took 10 calls to get problem
raised to level 2 and another week before it went to the next level. So not
worth the stress if you don't need it every day. I've had to get another
SIM to keep me going but no point paying for EE if it doesn't work. I
don't think it's going to be fixed soon.

[PaulONeillNW]

Just had another call from L2 at EE.

• "Proposed fix" that was scheduled on 3-Feb has been deferred to 14th February (at least) - proposed fix has now slipped multiple times
• They wanted me to get more call examples to test (I last provided examples at Christmas time, showing it wasnt working and so they could investigate further 
• I questioned WHYthey need more test data, given they haven't released any fixes in the interim. i.e. how is test data going to help, if no changes have been deployed in the interim. 
• Moreover, either they have a fix waiting to be deployed OR they are still investigating - their explanations make no sense

The L2 rep couldn't explain the thinking behind the request. All in all, it provides zero confidence that they know what they are doing OR have a handle on the issue. 

[Dervvvgx]

Hi, 

did you ever have any response from this or was it resolved? I’m currently having the same issue, I’m connected to Eir whilst in Ireland and have been fine receiving calls up until now - now Irish republic numbers can’t call me but people in the uk can.

[PaulONeillNW]

Latest EE attempt to fix this was rolled out on 14-Feb, however that hasn't fixed the issue either.

Over the past week and a half I've had further calls with EE Level 2 (on behalf of the CI - Complex Investigations team) who have requested additional examples of the service not working, so they can try again to troubleshoot where the problem is.  

As you indicate, the fact that incoming UK calls can be received  when roaming, and also outgoing  calls work, makes this difficult to spot that there even is a problem.  

[PaulONeillNW]

Update 4th March 2025

• EE's update to their Online Charging System (OCS) as of 14-Feb has NOT resolved the problem, and have been asked to provide further examples for testing purposes.
• EE have been trying to engage the software vendor who provides their OCS billing system, however they are proving unresponsive, i.e. not engaging with technical staff at EE to try to resolve issues.
• The impact on users is not restricted to Ireland, its also being felt further afield (Europe, Asia)

The net effect of this is that the problem is unresolved, and resolution now seems to be stuck in a deteriorating relationship between EE and their software supplier.  I won't be surprised if it ends up in a commercial / legal dispute between EE and their software supplier. 

Having worked in the software industry for years - unless there is a marked change in vendor relationships, this could drag on for months, if not years - because replacing a system like this takes time to rip out, select a new replacement vendor and integrate the new software into their billing stack. 

[Brendan196]

Thanks for the update I just get a text every week telling me it's still not fixed and will call when it's sorted. I can't get any info when I call.