Virgin Media only 2G connections abroad

boardfriek

Hi all,

Just wanted to make my recent poor current customer experience with Virgin Media Ireland (Mobile) public. I have traveled to Germany on September 19th and ever-since my arrival my mobile is only connecting to 2G (Edge) networks. At this point I have tried calling Virgin Media approx. 30 times by now. Seems impossible for them solve the issue (if they even try). A ticked in regards to my issue was opened two weeks ago but that did not solve anything and neither has someone made an attempt to get back to me. I am through with everything on my end. I have tried checking roaming settings (on mobile and online), reset and changing APN, tired the SIM in a different device and even had someone sending me a new SIM from Ireland. In my view the issue seems to be on the account itself. I guess I will have to cancel them and move to a different service. What makes me frustrated is the fact that there is no chance to get hold of someone really looking in depth into this issue and trying to solve it because I will very likely have the same issue next time I leave the country.

Thoie

I raised the same issue with them about a month ago in a different European country. We actually put another Irish network's SIM in the phone to test things out, and they were getting 4G while I was only getting E or H+ in the same location on the same network. So the problem definitely wasn't my phone, the location or the local network.

Their response was that you should get up to 3G signal while roaming, but I never got as high as 3G, and their roaming FAQs states

[quote]Your phone will then automatically search for an available network. This can take up to 10 minutes as it searches through all of the 2G, 3G and 4G bands for each network to find the right one for you.[/quote]

https://www.virginmedia.ie/customer-support/support-by-products/mobile/mobile-network-and-data/roaming-abroad/

I didn't follow up on it, but will be looking at switching network because of this. I think it's disingenuous at least to say "you can use your Virgin Mobile plan as if you were at home. Subject to a fair use policy, which includes a data cap of 13.60GB per month", while at the same time apparently not having agreements with any of the main European networks to allow you access to anything over Edge speeds.

Just an FYI on this. It may not be just Virgin. I was in Amsterdam last month and I'm on Tesco and never got over E, basically had no internet the entire trip.

Not sure do they use 3 as well as Tesco, if so that's the issue.

I'm pretty sure I was Tesco in Amsterdam more than once before that and it was fine.

Edit: they use the 3 network... so the issue is the network and not the providers but hopefully the providers push to resolve this.

boardfriek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983095#Comment_117983095

Thank you for your response. In Germany all Carriers have stated abolishing 3G Networks since end of June. So there are really only 2G and 4G networks by now. For me there is no "...as if I where at home" if I get downgraded to use 2G only. That´s completely unusable for day-to-day things.

boardfriek

So my 4 weeks of stay are over and the the whole duration of my time I had 2G Internet only. I made some research prior to my cancelation of Virgin and it seems like i would have the same issue with another carrier like 48 for example. Their forum is full of people reporting the exact same issue when traveling in Europe. I can safely say that it definitely works with Three prepaid as I was able to top up a pre-pay card with 20 Euro´s and had stable 4G data roaming in Germany.