Data Roaming in New York US

[Dee25]

I am in New York. I have the O2 Travel Bolt On. I cannot access 4G and the data roaming is useless. I have never had this problem before. Any answers as to what is going on? 

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@Dee25 

Data speed is throttled to 0.5mbps so that's why it appears to not work.

It is not designed to be used for anything other than basic emails.

You can also try selecting 3g only in your phone settings as some US networks don't support 4g for roaming networks.

[Enlli]

Unless you have a business tariff O2 limit speeds to 0.5mbps in the USA. Pretty much useless 

[Cleoriff]

@Dee25 

You might want to try a local sim. Either AT&T or T-Mobile if you want data. Use Wifi wherever you can and keep in touch with friends and family using Messenger or Whatsapp.(make sure they have those apps,)

[BadsignalNYC]

Same with me . I am in NYC , my service poor, signal status is E , I am not getting 4G, never use to be like this before. Automatically connected to T-Mobile.

[madasaf1sh]

@BadsignalNYC 

Try connecting to AT&T as it sounds like T-NoMobile have made a change to the roaming connectivity... 

There is nothing o2 can do with the partners network config.

[Chris0907]

Hi Dee, check out this thread with more of us having the same issue: https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Tech-Support/ALSO-Having-issues-with-Data-Roaming-in-New-York-City/td-...

[brockhill]

I am on the Travel Inclusive Zone and was also surprised by the data speed roaming cap in the USA. If I had known, i would never have signed up for it.

After multiple trips to the US to many states, i can confirm that the 500 kbps maximum is theoretical; in my experience, it is more like 100 to 150 which the data roaming pretty useless.

As a work around , i can highly recommend the use of an E-sim just for the roaming part. I have had great experience with Airalo; it is easy to set up and they offer much cheaper plans than what ATT or T-Mobile will offer. Of course, this requires a phone that will accept e-sims.

[brockhill]

I have tried the manual switch to ATT but, despite what O2 claims, it does not work.