how to make phone work abroad

[racheljh]

hi, whenever I go abroad my phone never works, but no amount of speaking to company seems to be able to resolve this issue. does anyone have this issue or know how to resolve it please? 

[Uliwooly]

@racheljh 

is your phone locked to a carrier/network? 

[racheljh]

Hi, thanks for replying, I have no idea if I'm locked to a network, I'm afraid I'm not technically minded 🙈 I have an xperia xa2 bought through carphone warehouse a couple of years ago on the vodafone network in the uk but completely dead as soon as I leave the uk. I've spent countless hours in the carphone warehouse shop and over the phone to vodafone after previous trips abroad but no idea why it doesn't work 🤷‍♀️

[Jonas]

Hi @racheljh, welcome to our forum!

If you bought the device at Carphone warehouse it's most likely not locked since as far as I know, they are more of a retailer store and not an operator. In general it's only operators that locks the devices to their network, but it's not very common these days.

When you are abroad, the device should automatically find a network that your operator is using. Sometimes it can be in your case a Vodafone network in a different country or a different operator that Vodafone has a deal with. This can not be turned off as the network roaming will always be activated, the only thing that can be turned off is if the device should be able to use mobile data while roaming or not.

I understand it's hard to test now if you aren't abroad but you can do a manually network search and see if you are able to find any networks that you can connect to while you are abroad.

1. Find and tap Settings > Network & Internet > Mobile network > Advanced.
2. Tap the on-off switch beside Automatically select network to the right.
3. Select an available LTE network in the list that appears.

You may want to double check with Vodafone so your subscription has roaming enabled as I know this can be turned off by the operator.

Let us know if that helps!

[racheljh]

Hi thanks for your reply and info, my husband tried manually searching while we were abroad last but without any luck. Sounds like another telephone conversation with Vodafone is needed 🤷‍♀️

[Jonas]

Hi again @racheljh,

Do you remember if the device found any networks at all or did it find networks but you weren't able to register on any of them?

Last time I was abroad, all I had to do was to turn flight mode on and then off and I instantly had a network connection with some Greek provider, but I have also been in a situation when I had to register on a network manually.

The only thing that is really required by the device is that it supports any of the bands that are used in the country you are in, but these bands are very general and it's to my knowledge almost the same bands every where, at least in Europe.

I wish there was some easy way to test everything before you travel abroad again, but I'm afraid that there isn't.