Data Roaming Italy

[cycle_paul]

I am in italy and my android phone will connect to I-Tim is I enable "Select Automatically" but it only offers me a an E type data connection (Edge 2 1/2G) even though other non BT phones next to me can get 3/4/5G.  Is this a problem with my phone or a problem with BT roaming agreements in Italy?

If I connect manually the only network I can get 3/4/5G on is Illiad which is ok except they have little coverage where I spend most of my time.

Thanks

Paul

[Colin_London]

This will be down to roaming agreements. BT mobile phones will only connect to certain foreign networks. Unfortunately it seems you are in an area where the networks with an agreement have poor coverage.

You have done all you can in trying to identify which networks you can use - there is no public list of which operators BT mobile has agreements with.

[cycle_paul]

Hi Colin,

thank you for your response.

Do you know why there is no published list for BT Roaming agreements - their Tech support teams don't have access to the list either?

Interestingly there is a list of EE roaming agreements on their website.

thanks

Paul 

[Colin_London]

No one knows except a manager somewhere in BT Mobile. BT Mobile is a budget service and the information they publish has always been very limited compared to EE. The limit of the support seems to be to allow auto selection on your phone and you will get what you will get and be happy with it!

Remember that BT still allows EU roaming. To keep costs down this probably limits who they can do roaming deals with, as opposed to EE who now charge and so have the financial headroom to do deals with many more operators. Of course we didn’t have this issue pre-Brexit.

[mrbluesky]

Like others we were recommended to switch over to EE for our mobile phones keeping to a similar package as we were on with BT. When we visited Italy using BT we had free roaming but now it appears with EE we will have to pay extra. This does not seem very fair considering we were advised to move over we were quite happy to stay with BT.