No mobile reception outside European Union (Macedonia and Kosovo)

[#1]

Last week I was in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Kosovo.  In Bulgaria I had no issues with reception or data roaming.  As soon as I crossed the border into Macedonia, leaving the European Union, then I could not connect to any networks and the same was true for the rest of my time there and in Kosovo.

I know Plusnet's standard response to such issues is "we are unable to guarantee service availability overseas", but when the same phone worked with other UK service provider's sim cards, and the same issue was encountered using the Plusnet sim card in a different phone (that worked fine with other UK service provider's sim cards) then this just seems like an excuse to hide the fact they're not interested in the service they provide their customers.  Personally I'd have thought any business providing a service that wants to keep hold of its customers would be interested in trying to understand where they are not as good as their competitors, but maybe I'm wrong!

I first contacted Plusnet chat support having already tried most of the things recommend (turn on/off flight mode, manually select networks, power off/on phone) to no avail.  Harry was helpful, and said I should record three attempts of trying to use the service, providing the date, time, location, error that occurred etc.  I did this throughout the day and then contacted chat support again to pass on this information, where I ended talking to Neil.  He was very confident there was nothing Plusnet could do to help me at all, and didn't seem interested in helping any further.  Who was correct? Did I waste my time recording my attempts? Should I be looking to transfer to a different network provider where I've got a better chance of my phone working abroad?

[#2]

Hi @rah123 

We don;t have any agreement with carriers in Kosovo - so that is the reason you had not coverage there. 

As soon as I crossed the border into Macedonia, leaving the European Union, then I could not connect

We do, however, have agreements in Macedonia with; 

- Makedonski Telekom

- ONE DOOEL Skopje 

Do you know if you were connecting to wither of these carriers nnetwork? 

Thanks, 

MoR

[#3]

In Macedonia the networks available were Telekom and VIP.  From the internet it seems that VIP could be the new name for the ONE network you mention.

No matter which of these I selected I would get a "Selected Network Unavailable" notification, and the phone would never register on the network.

It's interesting you say that you have no agreement with any networks in Kosovo, because there I had two options: "Vala" and "Mobitel".  With Vala I saw exactly the same symptoms as in Macedonia whereas Mobitel would actually let the phone register on the network for just under a minute before being kicked off.

[#4]

Hi @rah123 - that does seem strange. 

Regrettably, with you not being in the location which you were experiencing issues we are unable to get the connection tested. 

  Harry was helpful, and said I should record three attempts of trying to use the service, providing the date, time, location, error that occurred etc.  I did this throughout the day and then contacted chat support again to pass on this information, where I ended talking to Neil.  He was very confident there was nothing Plusnet could do to help me at all, and didn't seem interested in helping any further.  Who was correct? 

The first piece of information is correct here, 3 examples 2 hours apart is what our Operations Team require to send off to EE's back end network tech team, however, with the issue being abroad we are somewhat limited in the assistance that can be given due to the fact that international carriers and their networks are outside of our jurisdiction. 

Kind Regards, 

MoR 

[#5]

Hi @MasterOfReality,

My concern is that, without getting to the bottom of this now, I'll encounter the same issue in other countries as well.

I do have the information I logged if that would be useful?

Is it possible that this could be related to me having ported the number from EE to Plusnet, and so something didn't happen correctly then?

I did notice when manually searching that there was a no-entry type symbol next to every network.  Is this potentially going to be due to some ID in the SIM card that might not be correct?

[#6]

Hi @rah123 

My concern is that, without getting to the bottom of this now, I'll encounter the same issue in other countries as well.

There is no guarantee at all that this will happen, however, if you do get any form of issue when you are roaming please do let us know (we would attempt to diagnose this first and then grab those 3 examples from you). 

Is this potentially going to be due to some ID in the SIM card that might not be correct?

I wouldn't expect so at all, if there had been any issue with the port then it would have raised it's head before now. 

Kind Regards,

MoR

[#7]

Hi @MasterOfReality,

There is no guarantee at all that this will happen, however, if you do get any form of issue when you are roaming please do let us know (we would attempt to diagnose this first and then grab those 3 examples from you). 

This is what I tried to do this time, and got fobbed off saying there's nothing Plusnet can do to help, so how can I ensure I'm not going to get exactly the same experience if this happens again?!

[#8]

Thanks for getting back to us @rah123, I'm sorry for the experience you had when trying to provide us 3 examples previously. We'll look into this and pass on feedback where appropriate. In the meantime, if the problem does occur again and the usual troubleshooting steps doesn't fix the issue, feel free to provide 3 examples of the issue happening and we'll do all we can to assist.

Regards

[#9]

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@MasterOfReality wrote:

Hi @rah123 - that does seem strange. 

  Harry was helpful, and said I should record three attempts of trying to use the service, providing the date, time, location, error that occurred etc.  I did this throughout the day and then contacted chat support again to pass on this information, where I ended talking to Neil.  He was very confident there was nothing Plusnet could do to help me at all, and didn't seem interested in helping any further.  Who was correct? 

Both are correct

Plusnet will not progress any 'technical' (inc connection) issues without 3 examples of 'failures' which will require at least 5 working days (a week) before you can chase them hoping for a 'answer'...

... but you would probably get absolutely nowhere even if you repeatedly supplied them as a number of threads here show. Take a look in the threads.

.. and you assuredly would not get anywhere before you left the country when they wanted further examples - which of course you would be unable to supply.

Its simply the way it is with plusnet.