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Roaming Abroad, using your phone while Abroad: A Comprehensive Guide

On another note...
I can't wait for VoLTE Roaming to become more widespread.
Dial assist and changing numbers is a thing of the past with VoLTE R as you're not touching the roaming network for calls at all... Everything goes via the home IMS. Used VoLTE R in the US with Three, had full HD+ Voice and standard dialling available. It was great
I don’t talk on the phone at home, I’m certainly not talking to anyone when I’m on holiday 😂
 
I don’t talk on the phone at home, I’m certainly not talking to anyone when I’m on holiday 😂
Unfortunately some of us have to...🫠😆
 
On another note...
I can't wait for VoLTE Roaming to become more widespread.
Dial assist and changing numbers is a thing of the past with VoLTE R as you're not touching the roaming network for calls at all... Everything goes via the home IMS. Used VoLTE R in the US with Three, had full HD+ Voice and standard dialling available. It was great
That's interesting
 
That's really weird.... When I was there in January, calls worked on all networks. It was 3G, but it worked.

Bouygues worked best.
Strange... I was in Paris last month with iD (I think they use the same roaming as 3?) and everything was fine? Maybe wrong settings or they were in an area with a patchy network?
They said they had put +44.

I have no idea really, I have used Three PAYG in France myself and been with people using iD/SMARTY with no issues.
 
They said they had put +44.

I have no idea really, I have used Three PAYG in France myself and been with people using iD/SMARTY with no issues.

Did they have any credit left after buying the roaming passes? Sometimes calls don't work if we have a £0 spending cap or no credit, even if calls are "free".
 
Just enabled my vodafone Ireland PAYG eSIM today to check out whether the per-MB charge has increased as per a post here a few weeks ago, to find that it has in fact decreased! Here is the text I received today:
Roaming information for your stay in the UK. You can use your full home allowance of calls and texts at no extra cost and 40GB of data for every 4 week top up while you roam in Europe. Out of bundle data usage costs 0.1562c per MB. Check your balance and usage in the My Vodafone App or freetext BAL to 50233. See https://n.vodafone.ie/roaming.html for more information including our terms, details on freephone, premium numbers and emergency services in the EU. If you have any questions please call our free Roaming Care number +35312038232. For Emergency Services dial 112

Compared to last time I tried this on 12th October:
Roaming information for your stay in the UK. You can use your full home allowance of calls and texts at no extra cost and 35GB of data for every 4 week top up while you roam in Europe. Out of bundle data usage costs 0.1862c per MB. Check your balance and usage in the My Vodafone App or freetext BAL to 50233. See https://n.vodafone.ie/roaming.html for more information including our terms, details on freephone, premium numbers and emergency services in the EU. If you have any questions please call our free Roaming Care number +35312038232. For Emergency Services dial 112

So looks like they have actually decreased the per-MB charge, and increased inclusive roaming from 35 to 40 GB, making it an even better deal.
 
Does anyone know whether O2 allow free SMS receiving for countries in SE Asia? EE and Vodafone UK PAYG allow you to receive SMS for free, I have a friend who is also with O2 PAYM but doesn't have the £6/day travel bundle and cannot connect to any network here, and NatWest are waiting for a "Y" reply to a text to unblock his card
 
Hello from Poland 🇵🇱

Slimmed down my SIMs so less testing possible.

Lebara UK:
  • Plus PL 5G VoLTE
  • Orange PL but appears to only get 3G and no data, may try more soon as could just be slow to connect, it has in the past.
As previously noted Vodafone roaming is very steered so I suspect more rurally the other networks may/may not work...

Vodafone IE PAYG:
  • Plus PL 5G
  • Play PL 4G
  • Orange PL 3G only, data sort of work very slowly
  • "Unable to Connect" to T-Mobile but may just be steered.
Firsty:
  • Propagates as Orange FR
  • Roams on Orange PL 5G
  • Connects to Plus PL 5G eventually
DENT is in its issuer's homeland so is Plus PL 5G.
 
Last edited:
Hello from Poland 🇵🇱

Slimmed down my SIMs so less testing possible.

Lebara UK:
  • Plus PL 5G
  • Orange PL but appears to only get 3G and no data, may try more soon as could just be slow to connect, it has in the past.
As previously noted Vodafone roaming is very steered so I suspect more rurally the other networks may/may not work...

Vodafone IE PAYG:
  • Plus PL 5G
  • Play PL 4G
  • Orange PL 3G only, data sort of work very slowly
  • "Unable to Connect" to T-Mobile but may just be steered.
Firsty:
  • Propagates as Orange FR
  • Roams on Orange PL 5G
  • Connects to Plus PL 5G eventually
DENT is in its issuer's homeland so is Plus PL 5G.
What's Plus PL 5G like?
 
What's Plus PL 5G like?
Seems ok to me. Quite a bit of 5G. Rural coverage (travelling mostly by train on my trip) is very hit and miss, but I think that's true of all operators here. I haven't really got enough spread to know for sure but I have previously read some complaints about Orange PL.

Also updated post as it appears VoLTE also works for Lebara UK and Plus.
 
I'm going to Norway in the new year - first trip abroad ever! I've got EE's roaming at £2.40-something per day, but I've also got one of those travel eSIMs, from something called Breeze (because it came free with travel insurance, £12 of data free with £6 of insurance, go figure). The latter seems to show up as 3 AT in the UK, weirdly.

Hopefully one or the other, or both, will work when I get there. I've got anxious visions of landing hundreds of miles from home and having no way of accessing tickets, emails, car hire booking confirmations, etc.
 
I'm going to Norway in the new year - first trip abroad ever! I've got EE's roaming at £2.40-something per day, but I've also got one of those travel eSIMs, from something called Breeze (because it came free with travel insurance, £12 of data free with £6 of insurance, go figure). The latter seems to show up as 3 AT in the UK, weirdly.

Hopefully one or the other, or both, will work when I get there. I've got anxious visions of landing hundreds of miles from home and having no way of accessing tickets, emails, car hire booking confirmations, etc.
It will almost certainly be fine. EE is ripping you off but it's up to you whether to pay it, it will work absolutely fine for all most people need when travelling.

But regardless I would always save critical information like you mention to your device so it works without data. You can download a Google Maps offline area and offline language translate too - this not only means it works without data but also it uses less when you are online and loads faster.

EEA roaming is bread and butter now across Europe. It just works as long as your phone settings aren't totally wrong. Most of the EU has pretty similar coverage across all networks, it isn't something most people on a trip need to worry about.

All travel eSIMs are issued by some operator, it's often a European or Asian operator, 3 AT is not uncommon to issue them.
 
I'm going to Norway in the new year - first trip abroad ever! I've got EE's roaming at £2.40-something per day, but I've also got one of those travel eSIMs, from something called Breeze (because it came free with travel insurance, £12 of data free with £6 of insurance, go figure). The latter seems to show up as 3 AT in the UK, weirdly.

Hopefully one or the other, or both, will work when I get there. I've got anxious visions of landing hundreds of miles from home and having no way of accessing tickets, emails, car hire booking confirmations, etc.
Take a Three PAYG SIM or a smarty SIM with you.

Have a great time, I've never been to Norway myself but it's very much on my bucketlist :D

These roaming SIMs usually have a roaming broker, 3 AT is very common. Tele2 SE is another common one (Spusu use Tele2 as a broker for their EU roaming).

The broker works by 'selling' their roaming agreements as a service to other networks/providers. That way, smaller 'full' MVNOs like Sky, Spusu, Lyca can have their own roaming agreements. These brokers also work with eSIM companies.

The downside to this is, especially when an MVNO uses a roaming broker, your traffic gets routed back to the broker and then back to the UK. So ping times go sky high - and especially further away, doing anything can be a chore.
Spusu is a great example of this. I was getting ~30ms pings in France whilst roaming on iD (iD use Threes roaming agreements and not a broker, a direct connection back to the UK). Spusu was giving ~150ms pings as it was jumping to Sweden and then back to the UK.

An even worse example, from my recent US trip, was Honest Smart SIM. Their roaming broker is Proximus & TIM IT (depending on whatever it feels like it seems).
Whilst using TIM IT, the pings were 500/600ms, as traffic was going back over the Atlantic to Italy, then back to the UK.
My Three PAYG SIM, was again a direct link back to the UK, 90ms ping.
 
It will almost certainly be fine. EE is ripping you off but it's up to you whether to pay it, it will work absolutely fine for all most people need when travelling.

But regardless I would always save critical information like you mention to your device so it works without data. You can download a Google Maps offline area and offline language translate too - this not only means it works without data but also it uses less when you are online and loads faster.

EEA roaming is bread and butter now across Europe. It just works as long as your phone settings aren't totally wrong. Most of the EU has pretty similar coverage across all networks, it isn't something most people on a trip need to worry about.

All travel eSIMs are issued by some operator, it's often a European or Asian operator, 3 AT is not uncommon to issue them.
That's interesting, thanks! I didn't know I could do any of that stuff, especially not saving a Google Maps area offline. I'll have to sat-nav from Tromso airport to my accommodation, which looks like a fairly straightforward 15-minute drive up the road, but in a foreign country on the wrong side for the first time, in the dark and likely snow, is probably more challenging than I'm used to. I'm going to take printouts of the various confirmation numbers and emails etc just in case, too.

Before I land there, I'm going to try turning off data on my EE SIM and just using the roaming SIM, so that I don't get whacked for the daily charge for being in Norway - I presume they will just charge £2.40 as soon as the first byte of data goes through on the Norwegian network. I can use the EE SIM with roaming as a backup if the freebie travel eSIM doesn't play ball. I've never flown before, so it's all quite new!
 
I'm going to Norway in the new year - first trip abroad ever! I've got EE's roaming at £2.40-something per day, but I've also got one of those travel eSIMs, from something called Breeze (because it came free with travel insurance, £12 of data free with £6 of insurance, go figure). The latter seems to show up as 3 AT in the UK, weirdly.

Hopefully one or the other, or both, will work when I get there. I've got anxious visions of landing hundreds of miles from home and having no way of accessing tickets, emails, car hire booking confirmations, etc.
You're going to love Norway, I'm going there to use up some holiday in early December because I've got to burn some hours up before April, I regularly go to Asker as I have friends there.

As for roaming, I went there with 1p and it was pretty rock solid, for the life of me I can't remember who I roamed with but every time I go to any of the Nordic countries, the phone coverage is rock solid and fast even when I was 3UK, when I roamed onto 3 foreign network it was quick!

Having used three eSIMs back to back, I've had a pretty mixed experience, Firsty did bail me out in America but completely broke my iMessage, Honest (as has been echo'd many times on this forum is next to useless), and BNEsim is great but the on-boarding is a complete headache.

See how the Breeze SIM treats you but now I keep my 3PAYG and Lebara sim spare for American holidays and trips after my eSIM experience.

Norway is a great country, you're gonna love it, just budget for food, it's a tad pricey!
 
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