Cut off from all service in Reunion

[OldRiponian]

• Arrived in la Reunion on 22 June via Charles de Gaulle airport; both iPhones on the account worked as expected in mainland France. Not in Reunion. The best either could get was 2G; useless for navigation in the hire-car. No sat-nav available.

Managed to get to our destination as the journey was all by main roads and well signposted. Then tried all the suggestions on the website, reboots, resets, profiles etc for getting a better signal. Nothing worked. Called Sky and spoke to a techie who talked me thru’ all these again. For half-an-hour. He couldn’t figure out why they didn’t work or why both phones were affected.

The following day, we bought a cheap smartphone and local SIM. Lo and behold 3 and 4G and working Google maps. Hooray. We can use the car to explore.

We decided to just use one of our own phones for UK calls. Why pay for 2 Roaming Passports for just 2G? Then that phone, whilst in the middle of the island, started to get 3G…….

Great, we thought. Then the next day ~ no service. The last text from Sky said this was to do with spend caps, stopping Roaming Passport activation and suggested removing them. By calling a UK number. With no service.

One of the alternatives was to go on the website via Wi-fi and remove all spending caps on both SIMS from the account. Did that. No effect. The unused phone ,when powered up, connected to the local network just long enough for a Sky text telling me to remove the send caps….

Rebooted the phone in use. Same result. We have been cut off.

I have now sent 2 emails to the Sky help centre in the last 36 hours, explaining the problems. Nothing other than an acknowledgment for each.

Very frustrating. I suspect that we’ll be back in the UK before I get a reply.

Is the problem that the spend caps should be removed before you go abroad, so if you don’t then even a short roam is enough to switch everything off? If so, then Sky should make this clear.

Turning off spend caps is supposed to be something that can be changed mid-billing period. Is the Roaming Passport so new that this is a bug in the way it actually works, not the way it’s supposed to?

Why suggest you call them when you have no service? Why so long to answer an email? 

Thanks for reading.

[dmy24]

-Hi there, I will escalate this to our community chat for you. Please look out for an email or chat bubble. We look forward to speaking to you 🙂 

[OldRiponian]

@dmy24. Thanks for the prompt reply. Reunion is 3 hours ahead of UK time, so I will pick this up in the morning, having just come back to base this evening.

[OldRiponian]

Update

After a chat and some diagnostics, one phone has stayed connected, more or less, for 2 days. Still, the best we can get is 3G anywhere on the island.  The local SIM wors without issues.

, both 3 & 4G.  Toggling an obscure 'SIM Apllication' setting appeared to be the answer.

The other iPhone  connected, but we have switched it off because, as was said before, it was only  attracting more charges.. 

We are back Wednesday and will use the remainder of our  time finishing off some  sight-seeing

Thanks for reading.