Unable to activate mobile data abroad

[Anonymous]

I've just returned from Estonia and I was unable to use mobile data. I always got a message 'Could not activate a mobile data network. You are not subscribed to a mobile data service'

The same happened in Istanbul in February though I'd added the travel bolt-on.

I'm sim-only Pay monthly and I had plenty of data allowance. I had mobile data roaming switched on.

grateful for any advice. 

[Anonymous]

Did you make sure DATA ROAMING was turned on from the handset settings menu?

[Anonymous]

Yes I did

[MI5]

Which version of iOS are you running?

[Anonymous]

10.3.2

[madasaf1sh]

Did you try with 4G unticked at all? 

[Anonymous]

I don't know what that means. There's no where to untick 4g on my iPhone. The phone sometimes logged onto 3G sometimes 4 depending where I was. It didn't make any difference to using mobile data - I couldn't get any.

[MI5]

Try a manual search for networks and choose a different one to which the phone selects automatically.

[Anonymous]

I did that without success. 

I finally got a response from o2 in twitter. The message was 'hard luck' - you have to have the right provider. So if there isn't one you can can't use your data in Europe. Interestingly I was travelling with German friends who had no problems.

o2 has to let you use your data allowance in Europe free of additional charges but they seem not to have facilitated this so that in effect you can't. 

Unimpressed. 

[MI5]

Generally speeds are so slow that even when you do connect, you can't do anything.
It's very poor from o2.