Apple Watch OneNumber Dropping Data Plan - What is going on?

[cam1210]

I've got an apple watch series 5 cellular that I subscribe to Vodafone OneNumber to use cellular data. This keeps losing the data plan for no reason. I'll use it one day, then switch it on the next day and there is no cellular data. Under Mobile Data, the watch will say "No SIM, No connection" and on the watch app on the phone, there is no data plan and "vodafone UK" appears in the list "Data Plans Not in Use".

I then have to contact customer services, faff about with a long EID number and a sim swap process and then unpair and pair my watch, reinstall all my payment cards and reset the damn thing up. The process takes about an hour each time it happens.

Why is this happening? Is it at vodafone's end? This never used to happen with my old carrier EE.

[Jucus13]

The same issue happend to me 3 times.

10+ heavy hours on the chat last time, it was ok for 5 months and it dropped again now.

I am hitting the 5th hour on the chat, 8 agents, 5 teams, or more, not sure have lost count.

One recommending SIM swap, which didn't work at Vodafone end, then cancelling my onenumber plan, setting up a new one. Still no connection in 36 hours, even after unpairing resetting, etc. Then I am being told today that my EID is missing, which I provided when setting up the new plan. EID update unsuccessful, I am being advised that my plan in cancellation is causing the issue, transferred again and again and noone can solve it!! Whilst, I am paying for the service, and wasting my time with the support.

I have reached out to the social media team on instagram, being ingored. Customer care has put me back to the tech chat who ignroed my request not to sent to cancellations again. 

[swords1010]

Call 191 and ask to speak to the tech team. The whole thing should take no more than 5-10 minutes. The staff in the chat service have no access to do SIM Swaps for OneNumber lines for some reason. Tech team over the phone can do it quite quickly however.

[Robbo4685]

Same problem! What a joke. Has anyone got a solution yet? 

[Jucus13]

No permanenet solution I guess, they blame Apple… I talked to Apple support too, there is no problem at all with my watch, whici is under care so they would not hestate to replace it if it was so.

After 5 suffering hours yesterday, the 5th person I talked to did a sim wap on my behalf as my new eSim with the new Onenumber connection I was made to purchase was not activated… someone forgot it,…..

So the order of things you have to do when you plan drops is:

Request a SIM swap from you Vodafone app: Settings > Account > SIM swap

 When it’s completed, unpair and reset watch and repair.

If you are unable to request a SIM swap (like I was with the button greyed out), either they do it for you, or they cancel your current one number and set up a new one. 

If a new one is set up, don’t forget to request a SIM swap for that too, only then it will work.

As. For the root cause, NO ONE was able to give me an answer. I talked to the complaints team and the customer care.

[swords1010]

Just to add to @Jucus13 ‘s post:

“When it’s completed, unpair and reset watch and repair.” - This is not a required step. It appears to be a step on Vodafone’s step by step guide for an Apple Watch sim swap for some bizarre reason. A simple removal of the old eSIM profile in the watch and then a SIM swap will work fine. In no world should a device reset be required to change a SIM card. An eSIM swap will force the network to push the new eSIM to the device immediately and all works as normal from then - until it gets dropped again that is.

“either they do it for you, or they cancel your current one number and set up a new one. “ - Cancelling the OneNumber is also not required and is an unnecessary hassle and a billing mess. I would refuse that if it appears that it is what they will be doing. It seems to me that this is the route picked only by agents who are less experienced or not part of the correct tech team which has access to a OneNumber SIM swap request. I would refuse and insist to get transferred to the tech team so a SIM swap can be completed.

Also, the SIM swap form is simply broken - for all of us it seems. Making a phone call to 191 is the only viable route.

[Anonymous]

This is an absolute joke. I too am suffering from this complete incompetence from Vodafone. After 3 weeks of working just fine, my lovely Apple Watch Series 8 has just lost mobile connectivity.

Watch App in iOS suddenly says the following:

Your vodafone UK account is not eligible to enable mobile service on your Apple Watch. Contact vodafone UK at 191 for more information.

Which is odd because I have OneNumber on my account…and it was working fine until today.

What am I actually paying Vodafone for? My wife had the same issue during set up of her Watch and I just can’t face more hours of useless answers from the utterly inept 191 teams. This could very well be the end of a 20 year relationship with Vodafone. I just don’t have the time in my life for this level of incompetence.