Today, at Le Touquet, across three phones.
2xS7 and S6, all bought legit in the UK from major High Street outlets (one bought from a Vodafone shop) so unlikely this is the problem with a “Malaysian” grey import phone not supporting most 4G bands used in Europe.
One thing in common: all Vodafone contract.
I have also noticed this is common when flying over France. No data there too.
The obvious suggestion is that Vodafone have no roaming agreements with the companies involved, but right across France?
I get the same in Oban (Scotland) but there it is apparently known: Vodafone have no coverage once you are away from the airport itself. But the problem is similar in that there is voice+SMS but no data.
How does this work?
Is it possible there is a roaming deal on 3G but not on 4G, which might work if you set the phone to use 3G as the upper limit?
It turns out, according to Vodafone (I managed to get what used to be called Level 2 tech support via their online chat, which is pretty amazing but then they are the least crappy best firm in the UK) that I had GPRS roaming disabled on the account!
They also said my roaming services needed “refreshing” but can’t say what that means.
One of my two numbers goes back 20 years, ex BT Cellnet then O2. The other is a SIM purchased from Voda a few months ago. Both under the same Voda contract account. And both did the same. The man said that this GPRS config is for the entire account and affects all SIMs on that account.
It’s weird how this account misconfiguration can happen. There are some claims on the internet that it has been happening since the EU roaming billing changes.
I was with my A&P and his phone, also on Voda, did the same. The man yesterday could not help since I obviously could not pass security for that phone… but I bet it is the same issue.
This also suggests that even when you are getting a 3G or 4G indication on the phone, the initial dial-up connection (ATDT*99# etc) is still done as a GSM data connection, which for many years has been GPRS. So with GPRS disabled, you get nothing.
GPRS as a data connection is way too slow for data; it is about 20kbits/sec and just about ok for instant messaging or small text-only emails, but in most cases it doesn’t work at all.
I had the same on Sunday at LFAT. No damn data; and it just happened to be the one day they lost my flight plan. I had to shut down and use wifi in the terminal.
I will now call Vodafone support!
I was on holiday in France the last two weeks and had a similar issue: 3G reception with full signal but no data.
The strange thing was that it worked during the night.
I think that it is caused by the camping sites full of teenagers trying to watch Youtube all day long 
I had this at LFAT back in May. No data all day despite showing 4G on the iPhone display whilst roaming onto SFR network. This wouldn’t concern me ordinarily but I needed to book a last minute hotel room as I got weathered in :(
In desperation I manually selected the Bouygues network and magically 4G data was restored.
I’m currently banging my head against a wall chatting with Vodafone support.
The best he can offer is to check my roaming is turned on … grrr.
The magic phrase is to demand to be connected to LEVEL TWO TECHNICAL SUPPORT. Even the dumbest script monkeys get the idea.
It is just unusual, on the online chat facilities which many companies offer these days (and which I much prefer because I can do stuff at the same time), to be able to do that. Until recently, the Voda one was strictly limited to sales support.
I manually selected the Bouygues network and magically 4G data was restored.
I have tried that many times… never worked. Also it should not be necessary if the system is working correctly.
Another fix has been to configure the phone for 3G as the highest level i.e. disable 4G/UMTS/whatever it is called today.
This underlines how much we pilots rely on data connectivity. This is why I fly mostly with paper and file flights plans back home whenever possible.
I give up. Three chats, the walls to LEVEL TWO TECHNICAL SUPPORT are too high for me to climb for some reason.
Apparently I have to call whilst i’m having the problem rather than after the event.
I’m switching to EE today, i’m fed up with Vodafone. In addition to roaming not working, Biggest reason is that “WifiCalling” doesn’t support SMS, so i therefore don’t get texts at home.
The support representative denied level two assistants exist, denied you could refresh settings and confirmed GPRS was on.
Perhaps one more try for a laugh…..
Try the online chat. IME, the way to get that feature to appear is to start browsing high-end phones. After a few minutes of looking at these £600 phones, it appears
Wificalling needs a phone bought from the actual cellular company shop. AFAIK one cannot do it with any SIM-free phone, short of flashing it with the company image and I doubt anybody has the Vodafone flash image. FWIW, I have solved the “lack of GSM signal at home” business with VOIP (I use Localphone which is one of the less crappy and generally “just works”) although that solves it only for outgoing calls. You can present your landline number as CLI.
EE is horrible (for coverage) compared to Voda, IME. Both myself and Justine were with TM/EE for years. They also do all kinds of weird stuff e.g. this (that’s a real anorak article for you ). Their support people are the most moronic script monkeys on a certain subcontinent. At least Voda sell a lot into the corporate sector and – eventually – can sort stuff out.
