Roaming in France

We escaped from the UK in December to spend a couple of months here in France.
Internet is provided by a Huawei B311 router fitted with a sim card from Orange subsidiary Sosh which provides 40GB for 9.99EUR per month with no contract.
This works well as we have a strong - 4/5 bars signal here. Speed is sub optimal at 10 -20 mbps but is usable for what we do here.

We brought 3 UK mobiles with us all with pay as you go sims but of the three phones only the one using 1pmobile will work here. By work I mean connect to and register on one of the local mobile networks.
The other two are using Asda mobile and Three. Neither will connect to any of the networks here, although both were working in the UK and one just cut out when emerging from the channel tunnel. Both have accounts with good balances.

I have tried to fiddle with the few options available, swapped sims and contacted both providers for a solution with no success, Asda have not even replied to me.
I know that some telcos, including Three, have withdrawn from the previous EU rule allowing users to roam and retain the same phone and data charges as when at home. But none have just switched off roaming as far as I am aware.

So what is going on here? Any ideas or suggestions any one.

It may seem a stupid question but for the Asda sim have you roaming enabled via the web portal? you will find it under 'Menu' in the top right of the main screen then click 'My Profile' half way down and scroll down and you will see a toggle for 'roaming'.

Edited by deleted (Tue 04-Jan-22 17:56:44)

In reply to a post by dect:

It may seem a stupid question but for the Asda sim have you roaming enabled via the web portal? you will find it under 'Menu' in the top right of the main screen then click 'My Profile' half way down and scroll down and you will see a toggle for 'roaming'.

Well that was easy. Wife had told me that she had checked it but I guess she meant on the phone. Thanks dect that was an easy fix. Doh!

Three will be more tricky as I cannot log in to the account which has 2FA enabled and when the phone is out of service no verification SMS is received. I have spoken to Three twice and the agent assured me that I was both in credit and that roaming was enabled and that he would enable 2FA by email.......
Anyway we can live without that phone so I will just give up on this until back in UK next month. Its probably time to move away from Three pay as you go now that they have put their prices up for roaming.
Thanks again for the help with setup.

Enjoy your time in France, stay safe

The plot has thickened here as I received a message from Asda mobile that data roaming has been turned off because it was not switched on before leaving the home country.
This seems to be a part of the general tightening up and revenue protection compared with the previous EU member system of paying the same rate as at home when roaming abroad.
I see the big mobile operators are planning to make it much more pricey to use the phone abroad with plans by Vodaphone to charge an extra £2 a day with a concessionary rate of £1 a day for one or two weeks and EE plans similar too.
I notice that the French mobile companies are still allowing roaming in the UK at their local rates.
I wonder how much extra it really costs the likes of Voda and Three for calls and data made in Europe.
At least I have a dual sim phone with a French and UK sim to enable me avoid getting stung whilst I am here.

In reply to a post by jaba:

At least I have a dual sim phone with a French and UK sim to enable me avoid getting stung whilst I am here.

With my EE SIM I have 5 country roaming included as a ‘smart add-on’ and it works well in the USA; so I’m hopefully eventually the main networks (EE,Vodafone, O2,Three) will offer some product for those that travel regularly to Europe.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by jaba:

At least I have a dual sim phone with a French and UK sim to enable me avoid getting stung whilst I am here.

With my EE SIM I have 5 country roaming included as a ‘smart add-on’ and it works well in the USA; so I’m hopefully eventually the main networks (EE,Vodafone, O2,Three) will offer some product for those that travel regularly to Europe.

Yes I do too but it does not look that way at the moment: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45064268 and here: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59881892

The cost of calls would be manageable but not data. I was streaming iplayer here in France 3 years ago with Three pay as you go for £10 a month for 15gb which did not seem extortionate at the time.

In reply to a post by jaba:

The cost of calls would be manageable but not data. I was streaming iplayer here in France 3 years ago with Three pay as you go for £10 a month for 15gb which did not seem extortionate at the time.

Well iPlayer is region/geo locked for obvious reasons, but via mobile data you gained a UK IP address. I suspect both of those are problematic to the networks and content licence owners.

ISP Review are reporting O2 are to keep no extra cost EU roaming. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/virgin...

In reply to a post by Woolwich:

ISP Review are reporting O2 are to keep no extra cost EU roaming. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/01/virgin...

Yes and good for them, the only one of the big operators now who do not. Interestingly Pay as you go Asda Mobile using Vodaphone and 1pMobile using EE are allowing roaming at no extra charge.