Unable to access 4G services whilst roaming

[#1]

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@alexpres wrote:

So with this roaming issue PlusNet it really failing to provide the "Roam Like At Home".

Questions for the staff here (@adamwalker & @SammyM & @Gandalf & @LaurenB  😞

1. Has an incident been raised?  If so, what priority has it been given?
2. Has an incident been raised with your host network EE?  Again, what priority has it been given?
3. Can you give a public status update please?
4. Why is there nothing showing on https://plusnet.servicestatus.net/plusnet/status for this?

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Thank you very much for raising this again. 👍

The silence from Plusnet is just perplexing.

Meanwhile other providers are offering EU Roaming as well as WiFi calling and 5G.

Come on Plusnet! Don't make it so difficult for your loyal customers. 

[#2]

There is an incident raised but the last comment was that they needed some examples of people who were currently experiencing the issue, which we then found and provided.

This shouldn't be hard to fix - very disappointing it has taken this long. Some good offers from O2 at the moment on SIM-only deals - I'm ready to jump ship unless they get this sorted out.

[#3]

RESULT!

I previously had requested to leave Plusnet whilst still within the 14 days of my new contract when I discovered I could only get 3G when I recently went to France.  But it's not possible to port a number across to a new provider whilst abroad (according to O2), so was unable to leave within the 14 days. 

I told Plusnet and they said I may still get charged the whole early termination fee if I left after the 14 days (when returned to the UK), so I logged a complaint.

However I have just spoken to one of the Team Leaders in Plusnet and this was their response:

I am contacting you as per our conversation regarding your Plusnet Mobile account.

I sincerely apologise for the issues you experienced whilst you were in France. I have raised this further to our operations team, in the attempt to resolve this problem moving forward.

Based on our conversation I can confirm that you can now exit your contract without any further fee. I have applied credit to the account in order to cover the cost of any termination fee that may generate. I have applied notes to your account to reflect the actions taken.

 Again I am sorry for any inconvenience that has been caused and wish you all the best in the future.

I wasn't expecting that, fair play to Plusnet.

So I will now be leaving to O2 as I can't keep waiting for a lack of 4G roaming issue that I have little confidence will be resolved any time soon. 

Good luck all in getting this sorted.

[#4]

I am in Austria and both my wife and I have the same problem. This caused us serious issues as when we landed in Germany there was only 2G so couldn’t use satnav, couldn’t get into my email to get the address of where we were going. Here in Austria we have adequate 3G but I am travelling to Germany at the end of the month and am going to have to see about paying for another service as I will need my phone. I retired from BT after over 30 years a few years ago. I find it incredible that an issue like this would not have a high priority attached to it. Regretting taking a years contract out now… 😒

[#5]

Me Too

Just got back from Mallorca with no 4G service on any partner network including Movistar in Palma. Just spoken to support and the only advice was to switch network. I said that I probably had picked up most networks during the two week. Movistar was one of them and they have very good 4G coverage on the island. Something is not right here and I'm thinking of switching to Vodafone.

B

[#6]

Just looked at the EE partner list for Spain and it is limited. Only these three. No Movistar so not surprising.

Spain Orange Spain

Spain Telefonica Moviles

Spain Xfera Moviles

[#7]

Hey all,

Sorry for the radio silence. Weekends are incredibly busy for us, more so than on a weekday, because we're covering other workflows as well, so we can't always help here on a Saturday or Sunday as much as we'd love to.

Having spoken with a colleague in our incident management team, we are handling this as an incident. The networks team are wanting sufficient live examples to carry on with the investigation. Once provided they'll get back on the case.

As you may be able to imagine, it is difficult getting sufficient examples of those affected who are all overseas at the same time for long enough, so we can actually do a meaningful investigation before people travel back to the UK. It's no-one's fault though, but due to the nature of problem, it's an unfortunate side effect and difficulty.

I can't post a service status and in my experience, it's something we'd generally only do for a problem affecting a large number of our customers however I'm happy to ask internally if we can look at doing so.

To move forward with the investigation, if you are overseas currently and unable to get 4G but are able to roam on 3G/GPRS, could you private message me the following information.

Account ref or mobile number:

Country:

Experience: <for example what you tried, which networks you've connected onto etc>

Date and time tested:

Date you are leaving overseas:

In particular @tamarin64 and @fbowles as you seem to be overseas now? Would need a few more as well though.

If anyone gets an error when PM'ing, the magic number of posts first is 3. Really sorry for the problems here.

[#8]

Thanks Gandalf - I think it's honestly at a point now where enough people are complaining about this that you can legitimately push this back to the networks team.

There's no reason that they can't look up numbers which have been ported into PlusNet and are CURRENTLY roaming in Germany for example and just call them up. If they are having the problem they will be happy to try and get it fixed and if not, it's no problem to move onto the next one.

The number of results returned will also be useful in getting some higher priority for this issue.

Otherwise this is going to carry on one user at a time for the next few weeks until this thread is 100 pages long and all the affected customers have churned off.

[#9]

I can push back, but it's not going to change the fact that the networks team need to see the issue happening there and then. Unfortunately I don't believe they are a call taking team and able to call our customers. 

[#10]

Hi. My wife and I are both with Plusnet. We both came from EE and both ported numbers.

We're currently in Norway and not having anything other than edge is a real pain. I'm currently using my son's hotspot from his Id mobile which is getting 4G perfectly.

What do you need me to do? I can PM account numbers and phone numbers if that's any help?

Cheers

Darren 

[#11]

Hey Darren,

Could you private message (PM) me the following info?

Account ref or mobile number:

Country:

Experience: <for example what you tried, which networks you've connected onto etc>

Date and time tested:

Date you are leaving overseas:

(We've given you the permission to PM now so you don't need to wait until you've posted 3 times)

Cheers

[#12]

I’m happy to help. I arrived in Germany 2 weeks ago and will be here for another 6

[#13]

Awesome thanks. I see you had already PM'd Lauren some detail last week, which I've grabbed. 

Are you away for another 6 days or 6 weeks? 

Also, could you try getting onto 4G and note down the date/time for me?

[#14]

Yeah another 6 weeks I’m in Germany.

Sure, tried just now and getting E at 16:10 (German time so 15:11 uk time) 4th July.

[#15]

It's this kind of pointless bureaucracy that stops big organisations from giving the best customer service.. "They are not a call taking team and so can't call customers..." - well, why on earth not? They will have access to phones, and it would enable them to connect with customers having the issue without this drip drip of one a time cases being logged via this forum.