No 4g abroad

[amh13]

Hi, I have been in italy for 3 days now and I cannot get 4g on my phone. Only 3g. I have tried forcing my phone onto Vodafone IT 4G, but it only goes to No Service before reverting back to 3G. I am near switzerland so I tried selecting swiss operators, but I had the same issue, even though there is strong 4G signal. I have spoken about 5 times in the chat, and they reset my 4g settings, checked my account, but nothing. I also tried the sim in different devices, but again - only 3g. Whenever I enter an area with 4g coverage, my phone goes to No Service for about 5 minutes before going back to 3g again. I have performed a network reset on my device, i have taken the sim out for 30 minutes, restarted the phone, but the issue remains. 3G is very slow here because it is a touristy area and speeds often drop below 1mbit. I tried a local Vodafone IT sim card, and my phone immediately connected to 4G with a full signal and excellent data speeds.

[nickpick]

No it's a totally different account. I called them literally 10 times and it had no effect. 

[amh13]

@nickpick , try calling the complaints team. You can find the number here: https://www.vodafone.co.uk/vodafone-uk/complaints/

Most likely they will escalate your issue, like they did with mine. Hopefully with quite a few people now reporting this issue they might do something about it. I'm paying 20 pounds a month for a contract which specifically includes 4g roaming, however I am forced to use an italian sim card (extra 15 euros) to even be able to use whatsapp and google maps. It seems like quite a few masts in this area only have 2g and 4g. Today i noticed quite a few times that my uk sim was on EDGE or 1 bar on 3g (totally unusable), whilst the italian one had full 4g.

[nickpick]

They said they cannot escalate while i'm not abroad. Waste of time.

[amh13]

Yes, finally I seem to be getting 4g roaming... My phone is set to LTE-only, I'm scared of switching it back to auto now 😂

I'm connected to band 3

[donnyguy]

That's brilliant news.

The guy who was having problems in the IoM also posted yesterday that the problem was resolved. I'd like to think (but I'm sure it won't be confirmed) that the forum team flagged the volume of customers who reported the same issue to the relevant team and that in turn drived this fix.

[amh13]

I checked my other 2 sims (i have 3 on my account) and they are still having the same problems. It appears that the issue has been solved only on my main number. Still, better than nothing. 4g speeds are amazing and I can confirm that no throttling is applied whatsoever.

[Tash]

@nickpick So we can take a closer look into your 4G for you, I've sent a private message to you with details to contact our team directly. We'll then be in touch to help as soon as possible.

@amh13 Thanks for keeping us updated! Please contact our team through the details previously provided and we'll be happy to take a closer look at the other lines on your account.

[amh13]

Hi, i'm in italy at the moment and my phone refuses to connect to the local Vodafone IT 4G network. I have tried different phones, resetting, taking the sim out for a couple of hours, selecting different operators, but nothing. It only connects to vodafone 2g/3g. The phone often tries to connect to 4g, failing, and after about 5 minutes of No service goes back to 3g.  I have contacted customer services and they reset my 4G settings, but still no 4g roaming.  I also have a local Vodafone Italy sim card and it gets a full 4G+ signal straight away with speeds over 150mbps.

3g data doesn't seem to be throttled, as i'm achieving speeds of over 20mbps, however since I am paying for 4g roaming it would be nice to be able to use it. Has anyone else had similar problems? I literally signed a vodafone pay monthly contract last week.

[hammy434]

Hi. I also have no 4G in Italy. It was fine on the first day. Then it kept kicking me off 4G and I had to reboot my phone to get onto 4G. Now it never goes on 4G and 3G data constantly fails, I constantly get kicked to No Service, and when 3G data does work, it's only very briefly and data speeds are severely throttled to like 2Mbps. I thought you never throttled data and had 4G abroad, it's just constant roaming issues on this "best network for roaming". Can you please fix this and just give me what I'm paying for. I have a vodafone.de sim roaming on 4G fine, and local vodafone sims also work fine on 4G. Thanks.

[Jenny]

@hammy434 – I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems using 4G in Italy. 

So we can look into this further, I’ve sent you a private message with instructions on how to get in touch.