Esim in Australia

[Darrenjh]

Landed in Oz, installed an esim for data only but kept my BT mobile as primary line for voice. Im able to send and receive text messages byt cannot make or receive phone calls. Tris doing hard reset on iphone 12 and turned on and off airplane mode etc but cant get to make calls.

tried manually switching operators in Oz and every time i get an sms to say ive got a New Voicemail …

tried taking out bt sim, and putting in a vanilla phone with no esim and still cannot make or receive calls …

BT mobile im led to believe has international roaming turned on … 

any ideas ?

[imjolly]

you need to check MYBT that international calls is turned on and that you have set a spend limit above £0

[Darrenjh]

Thanks - my understanding is international calling is turned on by default , previously travelled to US and EU without issues and spend cap is above £0 also … will try and BT on chat as I can’t call the offshore help line

[imjolly]

if you have used international roaming before recently then I would expect it still to be on but no harm in actually checking.  from previous similar posts international roaming didn't seem to be turned on by default and need to be turned on

[Darrenjh]

Hi

Just managed to call Bt support using Viber.

essentially Bt do not have any roaming partners in Australia or the US so the only solution is move to EE (or another operator) that do have roaming  agreements but you can’t do that whilst you are abroad …. Shocked BT do not having roaming agreements in place with these major countries..

[imjolly]

you must have had same problem when in USA as like Australia they are not covered with BT roam like at home but need to purchase a Mobile travel data pass

[Alex_H]

Hi @Darrenjh,

Thanks for visiting the BT Community

I am sorry to hear you are having issues with making calls whilst in Australia, we do have roaming agreements in place so I am sorry you were told otherwise.

Try and set your network mode to 4G only and see if the call works. I know you mentioned testing out other networks, but test again after changing that and  when switching networks make sure to give it a couple of mins before testing a call if you did not already. What is actually happening when you try and make a call, do you get a recorded message?

Alex

[imjolly]

@Alex_H 

you need to pay for a Travel Data Pass as roam like home does not apply

 https://www.bt.com/help/mobile/going-abroad/buying-mobile-data-add-ons-to-use-abroad/bt-mobile-trave...

[Alex_H]

@imjolly Yes that is correct roam like home wont apply when in Australia and if OP wanted data on the BT SIM rather than their local eSIM they would need that travel data pass. If they are able to, when making or receiving calls they would be paying Zone 3 prices, available page 140 on the tariff guide. 

My reply was just to address what the OP has been told, which is that we have no agreements with local networks in Australia or USA to allow our customers to connect and use their phones when roaming in those countries, which is not the case. You should be able to connect and use your phone, you would just pay the relevant charges for that usage as its not covered by roam like home.

Alex

[Darrenjh]

Hi alex

tried this just get a beep x3 by switching to 4g only

assuming I don’t need to by a travel data pass… have an eSIM for data only .