Calling in the USA

[Niels1]

The last time I was in the USA (December 2021) my phone never worked on the local network.  I am traveling there again on Saturday.   Can you tell me what to do to make sure my phone works with local networks in New York?

Niels

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Niels1 

The advice we give is this

1. Make sure data roaming and mobile data is turned on in your phone's settings.
2. Manually search for another network
3. Reboot the phone
4. If you have an iPhone change your data APN to "mobile.o2.co.uk"
5. Try toggling Airplane mode on/off (it often helps kickstart things)
6. Drop down to 3G and see if that helps.

If you have problems then message O2 on Facebook ( https://o2uk.co/O2CFB) , Twitter ( https://o2uk.co/O2CTW) or Instagram ( https://o2uk.co/O2CIG) , they should be able to help you with this.

Some people find it's better to use a PAYG sim from AT&T or T Mobile. Available everywhere in the US.

Guide: Roaming MegaGuide 

[MI5]

@Niels1 

Roaming guide here Guide: Roaming MegaGuide 

[Bambino]

@Niels1 If you message O2 on social media as @Cleoriff has suggested, double check that roaming is enabled on your account before you leave.

Edit: Bear in mind that data speeds are very slow when roaming, so a local sim should be considered as also suggested.

[Niels1]

Thanks Cleoriff, I'll give that a shot.

[Niels1]

Thanks MI5

[Niels1]

Cheers Bambino, will do

[Bambino]

@Niels1 Something else for you to consider:

@Chris_K wrote:

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@mikewmartin wrote:y) t

Can the O2 rep on here confirm (or denhat O2’s Travel Inclusive is still capped at 500K bits/sec when roaming outside O2’s Europe Zone. For example when roaming in the USA. If so that means O2 customers get heavily restricted internet use. Text only websites will be OK, but websites with maps, images, photos (& there are lots of them needed for travellers) will be of limited use. Plus Youtube & videos will be unusable.

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I can confirm this is the case. I've included an exert below from our O2 Travel T&C's:

o fixed data allowance with O2 Travel, so to manage traffic (including audio and video streaming) we limit the service to 500kbps.

With this speed limit, services like Netflix are unfortunately likely out of the question as they use a lot of data (and as per above, as we have no fixed data allowance, we manage traffic by limiting the speed). Services like Maps etc should still work fine, though a couple of notes on this:

• From looking around, I've seen suggestions that Maps on average uses only around 2.19MB of data for every hour you're on the road - so a 500kbps limit is unlikely to impact your ability to use such service
• You may also want to consider downloading locations you're visiting for offline use which would further reduce reliance on speeds