Tethering when abroad

[Rudolphthered]

I was in a free roaming zone over Christmas and could not tether to my laptop, which I can do when I’m at home. I was told that tethering is not allowed when roaming. Does anyone know the reason for this and is there a solution eg a sim for a cellular tablet which can be used abroad or a dongle which can be plugged into a laptop? I had to switch off idata in order to use my phone abroad and then switch it back in when I got home. This all seems like an unnecessary inconvenience given that my previous providers allowed tethering in roaming zones. I think this should be made clear before taking out a contract. 

[gmarkj · Accepted solution]

If you have an iPhone and had to switch off iData/change the APN on your phone to use data on your phone, that's probably why you couldn't tether @Rudolphthered 

Customer services need to get the iData bolt on applied to your account, which (in theory) means that a)data will work correctly when abroad and b)that you will be able to tether.

One point to bear in mind - depending on where you are going the data speed will be capped to such a level that data will appear to NOT be working (USA is the big on, speeds are capped to 0.5Mbps!)

[Rudolphthered]

When I arrived in a roaming zone I had to change the mobile data APN from idata.o2.co.uk to mobile.o2.uk because my data wouldn’t work at all. When I did this my data worked but I was unable to tether. When I came home I had to change it back to idata in order to tether. I assume this means I do have the idata add on. I tried o2 customer services and the person I spoke to told me to reset my phone which I stupidly did. The only change that made was that I had to spend ages logging back in to everything on my phone. The customer service guy turned a big problem into a massive inconvenience without solving the problem. 

[gmarkj]

Definitely sounds like a missing iData bolt on @Rudolphthered 

Have you tried messaging o2 via social media?

Facebook (https://o2uk.co/O2CFB) , Twitter (https://o2uk.co/O2CTW) or Instagram (https://o2uk.co/O2CIG)