4G roaming in Southern Ireland. But there is a But!

[darrengf]

O2-U.K. have a new 4G roaming agreement now in Souther Ireland, but there is a problem and to get this working you may have to do some tweaking with your mobile handset.

O2 have signed an agreement with Three.IE for 4G roaming. This is great, but if you were not aware, Three Ireland in the last few years purchased o2 Ireland from Telefonica.

Great I hear you say, but this is where the problem lies.  Three are still running both the Old O2 Ireland network prefix as Three

and Three Ireland new network which is 3G and 4G only using the prefix as Three.ie.

However O2 sims are prefixed to use the old O2 Ireland network which is only 2G and 3G.  Three Ireland are slowly absorbing the network and creating a new one, but there are hundreds and hundreds of Masts that have not been done. And o2 U.K. sims will clamp onto th old o2 Ireland network all over Southern Ireland.

So this is what you will need todo if you want to use 4G.

Android.  

First do a Manual network search and choose H3G 4G. Or Three.ie 4G.

It may not look like it is doing anything and can take up to 10 Mins to connect, but it should connect.

if it doesn’t after 10 Mins,

then you need to choose the H3G (3G) or Three.ie 3G and again leave for 10 Mins.  The phone will then register with the H3G network.  

If you are then showing 3G, then again you have to do another Manual search and choose again the 4G option.

The phone should then Clamp onto 4G.

🧐 Note.

1) if you clamp onto the new H3G network, you will only be able to use 3G and 4G.  If there is no singnal, your phone will not wander to 2G or to any other network.

2) Please also be aware that if you put you phone into Automatic Seletion, it will go to The old o2 Ireland network and you will then only have 2G and 3G.

Apple.

Your phone will have clamped onto Three or (3). This is the old o2 network,

you will need to go and do a manual search.

As you can see from th options below, I’ve showm which network is which

You will I’ll need to then choose 3(3G).

Your phone will not go straight to 4G and may sit there on 3G for a while,

You will then need to toggle 4G on and off a number of times to see if you can force it to go over.

🧐 Note.

1) if you clamp onto the new 3 (3G) network, you will only be able to use 3G and 4G.  If there is no singnal, your phone will not wander to 2G or to any other network.

2) Please also be aware that if you put you phone into Automatic, it will go to The old o2 Ireland network (3) and you will then only have 2G and 3G.

But there is more... 

People have been putting on Twitter, no matter what you do, the phones are not going over to 4G, but the folks and O2 Twitter land are saying that there is defiantly a roaming agreement in Souther Ireland, but can’t guarantee over seas networks etc,

@Marjo, @EmilieT, @Martin-O2

Could you look into this please and confirm the issues etc.  Martin I know your on holiday, but you were looking into a list and wondering if you have managed to obtain it.  

Any way, I hope this is helpful. 😀👍

[Cleoriff]

Thanks for posting @darrengf though as you say there is a BUT....

I think I'll just stay in England

Anyway, I hope @Martin-O2 can give you some answers on his return from holiday...

[paddyguy]

O2 are the best

[darrengf]

@Cleoriff Same here.  Of to Sea side tomorrow for day,  No roaming, may not even have 4G. (I didn’t last time, so we will see lol.)

@paddyguy It’s always good fun lol, but The issues that o2 have are not just unique to them I’m afraid.

But the issues are more so how the network implements things and this causes then some of the issues.

O2 isn’t the best with implementing roaming some times. We know some people with o2 Travel Inclusive can’t get any data abroad at present (Not Good)

There intentions are always good, just why they have so many issues is any ones guess.  

Is it the system they use for billing, back end systems or just not implemented correctly? I honestly don’t know 😔

Regarding the above with network searching etc,  this is common for all networks worldwide.

Most networks also place a provision of preferred roaming networks when roaming. O2 does this. This is more to do with costs as they may have a special roaming rate with with one and not the other, but o2 may still allow you to use the other foreign network for emergencies etc or when you manual search and select another roaming network for instance. In Greece you can use Cosmote and Tim all over, but is some well built places, you can also connect to Vodafone Greece,  but general not on the Greek Ireland’s. ( even though there is coverage ) o2 will have a partial agreement to only use certain parts of the roaming networks in Greece on Vodafone.

If however you are a Vodafone U.K. customer, then Vodafone are always the preferred roaming networks, so a Vodafone U.K. customer will roaming on Vodafone Greece in Greece all over the place, it’s only when you do get a signal you roam onto other networks, but your sim will try to push you back always to the preferred network where possible.

If you put your o2 sim in some old 2G only mobiles, sometimes you can see further into the sim and see what they are provisioned with.  You can delete and add preferred roaming networks, however as soon as you move the sim into a new phone, the sim is reset to default regarding roam8ng networks.

Roaming is very clever and what the networks can and can not do is also amazing.  

But it’s also one area that is a mine field of issues and confusion I’m afraid.

But I enjoy it. Lol😀

[Marjo]

Hi @darrengf, really nice post, thanks for taking the time to write these helpful instructions. Cheers for the tag too, we're checking if there's any news on this that we can share. 

[Marjo]

Hi again @darrengf and all! I hope you're enjoying your Friday evening! We got some info on this one.

Thanks again for your review! You’ve jumped the gun a little with this one, but great to see your enthusiasm for 4G roaming here. We’ve not yet finalised our roaming agreement in the country and right now we’re currently testing this. During testing, 4G might come and go and not provide a complete and smooth experience – that’s just how testing goes we’re afraid.

[Cleoriff]

Well that explains it then @Marjo

[darrengf]

@Marjo thanks for the info but there is one slight issue.

o2 twitter are telling everyone that Southern Ireland has 4G roaming with H3G. So it may have been better not to tell customers that there is 4G in Souther Ireland as there is a few unhappy now 😔

But it does answer a lot of the issues that they are facing as @Cleoriff says.

[pgn]

That explains a few of the roaming behaviours that I have observed... Good detective work, @darrengf !

Here is what I see, about a mile as the crow flies from the Republic of Ireland:

[Irish_canuck]

Any update on this agreement?