Simple Choice International Roaming Leaves a lot to be Desired

[Bob61]

Traveled to South Korea and tried to use my TMo account. According to TMo website the country is supported under the Simple Choice international roaming. No such luck. Called customer support and they did the usual try this and try that but no go. Found out in taking with the service rep that of the three providers in SK 2 are blocking service. They had no idea why I didn't get service and opened ticket with engineering. 12 hours and still no service. Kind of useless to offer this under the plan of you can't get it to work.

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[Rirruto]

My mother was in Korea (Incheon Airport in Seoul) a couple of days ago for a layover on her way to the Philippines. She did not pickup a signal there as well. She said it just said "Searching" where the network icon should be. She also is not picking up any service in the Philippines either. This is in contrast to my experience in Canada a few months ago where service worked great with my phone picking up Rogers and Bell.

 

[Almeuit]

If the other carrier blocks it they can't help it.. Especially if it was changed on a moments notice. It does suck though .

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[HawaiiD]

If the other carrier blocks it they can't help it.. Especially if it was changed on a moments notice. It does suck though .

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My wife is in Japan now with the kids. And she says roaming works great catches all over albeit slow at times.
Gps works great, Text messages from here to there are instant. Not sure what network she is on though?

 

[raptir]

My wife is in Japan now with the kids. And she says roaming works great catches all over albeit slow at times.
Gps works great, Text messages from here to there are instant. Not sure what network she is on though?

Based on all the posts in this topic it sounds like it's specific to South Korea.

 

[raino]

What also sucks is that TMO doesn't tell you who their partners are for this program. So you can't exactly manually roam on the right partner, and are on the hook if you happen to roam on a non-partner carrier.

 

[Bob61]

If the other carrier blocks it they can't help it.. Especially if it was changed on a moments notice. It does suck though .

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If TMo doesn't have an agreement in place with the local carriers then they shouldn't state that they have service supported in that region. Or minimally note such in their information. However even with one carrier I should still be able to get service somewhere. I've been all over Seoul this past week and haven't found service anywhere. I think that this is more than provider blocked service as no providers are even showing up in the network status. I would think they if it was blocked I'd still see list of local providers, just wouldn't be able to connect or get service.

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[Bob61]

What also sucks is that TMO doesn't tell you who their partners are for this program. So you can't exactly manually roam on the right partner, and are on the hook if you happen to roam on a non-partner carrier.

In talking to the service rep the providers are SK, TK and LG. LG is one that is supposedly not blocked. As they are large provider for SK I theoretically should get signal somewhere. Looks like TMo fails to deliver as advertised for the South Korea region.

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[raino]

In talking to the service rep the providers are SK, TK and LG. LG is one that is supposedly not blocked. As they are large provider for SK I theoretically should get signal somewhere. Looks like TMo fails to deliver as advertised for the South Korea region.

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Was that regular, frontline CS who told you that, or did engineering give you a call?

I posted in the TMO support forums, and they said they don't have such a list of carriers.

 

[Bob61]

Was that regular, frontline CS who told you that, or did engineering give you a call?

I posted in the TMO support forums, and they said they don't have such a list of carriers.

It was from escalation agent.

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[Rirruto]

Back when International Roaming was first implemented, I recall seeing the available carriers on the T-Mo site for each country and which bands they were on. Looks like they got rid of that a while ago.

 

[HawaiiD]

Based on all the posts in this topic it sounds like it's specific to South Korea.

If you you look at the topic heading it says "international roaming ".
I just wanted to let you all know as far as Japan is concerned? It works ok

 

[Bob61]

After reporting the problem the issue still hasn't been resolved. I signed up for TMo in order test the waters. I've been with vzw for almost a lifetime, have stuck with vzw as I have unlimited. TMo plans have been competitive with pricing and moved a line to TMo knowing I'd be in South Korea and was told that phone would work fine. It obviously doesn't.

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[Almeuit]

After reporting the problem the issue still hasn't been resolved. I signed up for TMo in order test the waters. I've been with vzw for almost a lifetime, have stuck with vzw as I have unlimited. TMo plans have been competitive with pricing and moved a line to TMo knowing I'd be in South Korea and was told that phone would work fine. It obviously doesn't.

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Okay but Verizon would be worse when roaming internationally wouldn't it? So to compare state side Verizon to international T-Mobile.. Is kind of an odd comparison.

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[Bob61]

Okay but Verizon would be worse when roaming internationally wouldn't it? So to compare state side Verizon to international T-Mobile.. Is kind of an odd comparison.

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I have my VZW device with me and Verizon is working fine, but very costly since you have to pay for roaming. For TMo to offer international roaming included in price and not work is just a fail.

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[Almeuit]

I have my VZW device with me and Verizon is working fine, but very costly since you have to pay for roaming. For TMo to offer international roaming included in price and not work is just a fail.

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I guess so. For that one area.. Most report good results. I'm not rich so very costly wouldn't work for me .

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