Roaming in Lisbon & Madeira, Portugal

[MFC52]

I was in Lisbon earlier this month and there was NO SERVICE despite exhaustive attempts with Vodafone to resolve; worked elsewhere.

After a reset it would come on for 10 seonds and then go.

Is there an issue with Vodafone Portugal ?

Anybody else with issues or not recently ?

Thanks

[BandOfBrothers]

Both Vodafones you mention are not linked and thus are separate entities even tho they share the Vodafone Banner. 

Unfortunately as Vodafone UK has no direct access to a foreign network they are unable to guarantee that everything will work all of the time. 

[MFC52]

Sorry I hadnt replied...a bad case of "man flu" and I am new to this. I ticked to be emailed if anybody replied but this didnt work (either).

It didnt work on any of the Portugese networks (not just Vodafone). I did try them.

No problem was in Madeira too.

No Vodafone really tried but to no avail.

Credit promised.

Thanks again.

[AnnS]

Hi @MFC52

As far as connection is concerned, if you were roaming on Vodafone Portugal, there would not have been any signal problems.

If your service came on for 10 seconds before going, it more than likely account related with a restriction bar remaining on your account which needs to be removed.  The first place to look will be your online account. Under bars, there is a restriction for roaming.  

This should be simple enough for live chat to sort out with account access for you, but should you still have problems, this will be one for the Team here on the forum to look into and make sure all bars have been removed.

[Annie_N]

@MFC52 You say that you were getting service "elsewhere" - did you mean elsewhere within Portugal, or in other parts of Europe, or just within the UK? If the problem was restricted to Lisbon, but you were connecting OK elsewhere within Portugal or in Europe generally, it does sound as though there may have been some specific problem in the Lisbon area, rather than a problem on your account.

Possibly some incompatibiity between how things are set up in Lisbon and how your individual account is set up? Were you able to use a different account, to see how that got on? Or able to compare notes with anyone else "roaming" there?

Although Vodafone UK has no direct control over other networks, it does advertise the availability of roaming in a remarkably wide range of countries, and therefore presumably has agreements in place with the networks in those countries. Therefore it cannot entirely wash its hands of responsibility - though, from your mention of "exhaustive efforts," it doesn't sound as though they were shirking!

[MFC52]

Sorry I hadnt replied...a bad case of "man flu" !

No problem was in Madeira too.

No Vodafone really tried but to no avail.

Credit promised.

Thanks again.

[MFC52]

No, it wasnt a bar issue but thanks, appreciated.

Sorry I hadnt replied...a bad case of "man flu" and I am new to this. I ticked to be emailed if anybody replied but this didnt work (either).

It didnt work on any of the Portugese networks (not just Vodafone). I did try them.

No problem was in Madeira too.

No Vodafone really tried but to no avail.

Credit promised.

Thanks again.

[MFC52]

Thankyou. There were no bars though.

[John]

@MFC52 I can understand how frustrating it can be when you don't have signal - especially when you're abroad!
When you're outside of the UK, were unable to guarantee that you'd receive service.
For the future, we'd suggest making sure your phone is set up to use abroad. You can find more information on how to this on our Setting up your phone to use abroad page.

It's also important to ensure you have no bars on your account before you travel abroad. You can check this on your My Vodafone account or via the My Vodafone app. If you're still unsure before you've gone away, our Live Chat team would be more than happy to take a closer look into your account 

If there's anything else we can help you with, please feel free to give us a shout.

[MFC52]

Well thanks for that John  (by the way, the link didnt open).

I travelled on to other countries on the same trip and the phone worked in those countries; just Portugal & Madeira it didnt work.

I had no bars either.

I spent over 3 hours talking to help.

I guess it was an erroneous issue.

But thanks for your consideration.