Unable to access 4G services whilst roaming

[#1]

@skeg0, Nice! Well, I hope you're having a good trip abroad despite the roaming issues. I love travelling myself.

@martin2345uk, I can understand what you're saying, but the networks team are busy folk and don't manage customers complaints. It's up to us in the contact centre to do that and raise onto them any potential problems. 

[#2]

Hi @Gandalf 

if you give me PM permissions I’ll send you my account details but in brief I have been in Austria since Saturday evening. IPhone XR, phone will roam on both A1 and Magenta-T on 3G only. Added an eSIM to my phone and roams perfectly on A1 with 4G/LTE. In Germany on Saturday only had Edge on o2-de (wouldn’t go to any other network) so no data until crossed the Austrian border. I will be in Austria until 16 July, then briefly in Germany to fly home.

thanks

[#3]

Just wondering if anyone knows how widespread the issue actually is? Is it the majority of users abroad or just confined to a certain few? 

I just rejoined Plusnet after Voxi ended roaming, and am planning to spend most of the summer in Europe, so roaming is pretty important. But then I saw this thread and realised my mistake. So if it doesn't work, I will need to pull out pretty quickly... does anyone know what my chances are and does anyone actually have functioning 4G in Germany, Switzerland and Norway? I have a Galaxy S10 and my number was originally from Plusnet - 07419, shows as EE (Orange). I then switched to Voxi/Vodafone so would now be transferring from them. 

Or is it worth just risking it and not cancelling? As I've already taken out the contract it will definitely be a hassle to end it, and the 25GB for £10 that I chose is pretty good value especially with EE speeds in the UK as well. But no roaming is a dealbreaker. I'm sure others are in the same situation... 

[#4]

Don’t risk it. Cancel now as I think it’s very unlikely this will be resolved any time soon.

[#5]

Nah cancel. I remember how many years the router issue on home broadband went on and is still happening. Like pretty much everyone else I had to get a 3rd party router because Plusnet's rebranded homehub just kept killing connectivity for devices. It was a bit of a joke how they pretended to be on the case and nothing ever got fixed. This issue with roaming seems exactly the same and I doubt it'll ever get fixed so I'll have to work out if I want to stay with Plusnet for mobile too. Such a shame because it'd be great if they didn't have these daft problems they pretend to fix but obviously never do anything about.

[#6]

I would cancel if I was you. I've been in Germany for a week now using the same contract as you and I've had nothing but edge the entire trip. I was using my EE sim out here only 3 months ago and had no issues at all, so it seems like PlusNet just don't have access to any 4G bands out here. The lack of clarity with support doesn't give me any confidence that this will be sorted in the near future.

[#7]

This is really becoming a huge issue for me because my phone is hunting all the time so it's constantly warm and the battery is being drained quickly. I was hoping to listen to a few podcasts and do a bit of browsing while in the fjords but this is really becoming a problem now. Had I known I could have got literally any other mobile network and got fast 4G like my kids on their ID mobile cheap contracts. Not sure what I can do because I'm stuck without support or any resolution. If Plusnet aren't taking this seriously then I'm going to have to cancel my broadband and TV when I get back too because I just can't trust them not to break something and then go radio silent. It took me 2 years of messing around with my broadband router before giving up and getting a 3rd party generic one. This is going to be the same. I'm now spending £15 a day for satellite WiFi from the ship and I'm not happy.

[#8]

Hi all, 

I'm really sorry that this issue is still ongoing, we're investigating it at present and I'll make sure we keep this thread updated with any developments. 

Could anyone affected please send me a PM with your mobile number and your location whilst that's been a problem as any examples will really help out. Apologies again for the disruption in the meantime.

[#9]

Hi @adamwalker, @SammyM, @Gandalf, @LaurenB 

Is there any kind of detailed update that you can give? For example, is it confirmed that it’s only affecting numbers that have been ported in? Would being issued with a new number be a workaround for this issue?

I moved to Plusnet in Feb 2022 and ported my number from BT Mobile. So far this year I have visited 4 European countries (Gran Canaria, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway) and have at best only received 3G. I have never been able to access 4G. Data access in Denmark and Norway was Edge only

For me, a good mobile data service abroad is really important (arguably more so than a voice and text service) and it’s incredibly frustrating to find that you either have slow (3G) or no (Edge) data access when travelling abroad.

One of the reasons that I chose PlusNet was their marketing claim that you can ‘Roam Like at Home’. If I had known that the data service abroad would be as poor as it has proved to be I would never have moved from my old provider where data services abroad were seamless.

This issue has clearly been ongoing for many months (from my experience since at least Feb 2022 when I visited Gran Canaria) and is now exacerbated by countries switching off their 3G services. If not already, it needs to be prioritised as a critical issue that requires fixing.

If it's not resolved by the end of July 2022 I will reluctantly (since coverage in the UK is good) look to be released from my contract so that I can move to another provider who are able to provide seamless 4G services abroad.

[#10]

Interesting- thanks for your replies everyone. Think I will cancel as it doesn't look like this will be sorted anytime soon. I phoned Plusnet earlier to ask about cancelling and they didn't seem surprised that I was cancelling for this reason at all and said they'd heard several others mentioning the same.

[#11]

Hi Adam happy to if you give me PM privileges…

[#12]

Hi Adam and Gandalf.
Is there any update on this? I was hoping it would be fixed by now if you've got various examples.
I'm still having to pay £15 a day to use maritime WiFi just to get on this page to see if it's fixed yet.

[#13]

spam to get the pm permission 1

[#14]

spam to get the pm permission 2

[#15]

spam to get the pm permission 3