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Roaming not working in the Philippines

joechin13
Newbie
Posts: 4
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎21-12-2016

Roaming not working in the Philippines

Since arriving in Manila (Philippines) over 24 hours ago, the Motorola G 2014 with the Plusnet SIM is showing "emergency calls only". The same SIM in the same phone worked when I was in Dublin (Ireland) over the weekend. At my location, there are strong signals from both popular local mobile providers - Globe and Smart. I have an iPhone 6S Plus with the Smart SIM and it is quite happily chugging along at LTE speed with a signal strength of -96 dBm, so signal quality is not an issue. The same phone has worked fine in the past with a Giffgaff SIM so I am sure the necessary frequency bands are supported. Manual selection of both networks does not work either. I have a feeling this has come down to a commercial issue with Plusnet Mobile's roaming partner.

I contacted customer service via chat, indulged them in the usual remove SIM/restart phone/reinsert SIM routine, and typical of my Plusnet CS experience to date... they were friendly but powerless to do anything, citing this is as an issue with the local roaming partner. If Plusnet Mobile has any aspiration to be a real mobile service provider, it will have to do better than to blame the local roaming provider(s) when other UK mobile providers have no issue roaming in this country. For now, I cannot receive any call and text to my UK number. This is an issue as I rely on the UK number to receive one-time password for 2 factor authentication from quite a few online vendors.

 

It would appear nothing comes easily with Plusnet Mobile - number porting took a while (btw no sign of the credit offered due for the delay), and now international roaming doesn't work.

2 REPLIES 2
MarcJohnson
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 56
Fixes: 5
Registered: ‎16-12-2016

Re: Roaming not working in the Philippines

Good morning!

In international situations where your services, credit and settings are correct by us, then the only option is to contact the local roaming network to find out why they aren't making service available for you. On some occasions, we have seen that this can be because of a lengthy cycle in the communications update - for instance, if international services have recently re-activated (for example, following hitting the Smart Cap), it may take 24 hours or longer to be updated by the local network, depending on their procedures and systems - but at that point we'll need the roaming network to confirm that to you.

The reimbursement for the porting delay you experienced should be credited automatically. If that isn't included on your next bill, please get in touch with us via Live Chat, email to mobile-help@plus.net, calling us, or by sending me a private message, and we'll be happy to look into that for you. Smiley

Thanks for the feedback: we certainly offer a stripped-down, 'no frills' International service at present, but we're always happy to take suggestions for future improvements and developments. Don't hesitate to get in touch there's anything else we can help with. Smiley

joechin13
Newbie
Posts: 4
Thanks: 3
Registered: ‎21-12-2016

Re: Roaming not working in the Philippines

As a follow up... roaming never worked in the Philippines during my two weeks there. It did work in Doha on the way back, and then again in Dublin earlier this week. I have several more trips to Europe, North America, and Asia over the next two months so my UK mobile number has to work in all those countries. Anyways, I have had enough of the troubles with Plusnet and the lack of basic features (e.g. call forwarding). Plusnet is obviously not for me, so I requested the PAC yesterday and will move the number to Three asap. I hope Plusnet Mobile eventually sorts everything out. Good luck!