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. 😀👍

[Benjy]

I wish it would stay connected to the network signal I choose, but it will automatically go back to the old network signal. I even noticed it will go back to the old o2 network on 3 Ireland when manually choosing Vodafone IE. I don't have the option on the Note 8 to stop it changing for some reason. It's quite a nuisance. You also have to go through the period of waiting to find all the networks again to change back to the 4G signal I want. I can remember some trouble before being in Ireland with O2 but this is ridiculous.