England to Southern Ireland Mobile Phones?

Question

Hi. I live in Leicester, England and a friend of mine has gone to Southern Ireland for 2 weeks (not sure exactly where) and I have been texting him but have not recieved a reply. His mate told me that when he goes there no-one can get hold of him because of the mobile phone networks being different over there. We are both on the UK O2 network. Someone else tried ringing him and got a "It has not been possible to connect your call" message.

Is the network the problem?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Texts should work.I texted my son when he was in London and I am in N.W.Ireland.Have you put the international dialing code for Ireland infront of his number?

Answer 2

whats wrong is he hasn't got his fone on roaming.

if he logs on to the net or rings O2 up, they will activate it for him.

Answer 3

You are right to make the distinction Lisa between northern Ireland which is British and southern Ireland which is Irish and a foreign country. This means he  needed  roaming set up before he leaves so you can connect with him. Really though he should call you from a phonebox meantime. ( Your phone should also be triband as should his be as he is in a foreign country.  

Seamus is wrong though re Ireland. You cannot say Ireland as it is Northern Ireland - british-no roaming required and southern Ireland or republic-roaming rquired-foreign country.) Great question excellently put.

Answer 4

Hello,

He is in Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. Sorry but the term Southern Ireland gets my goat!!!

That aside

1) He may have his phone off

2) He may be in an area of no reception

3) His phone may not be working.

4) He may not be set up for roaming abroad

Good Luck

Answer 5

Had your friend switched to billpay not long before travelling, or was he a reasonably new customer? This can play a part. They warned me that it would be difficult to make or receive calls when abroad for the first few months, although texting was no problem.

Another consideration is that some places are very sparsely populated so there's very little coverage, a problem which Irish people have too.

Does your friend need to switch to roaming?

Otherwise phones bought from O2 in Ireland work fine in other places, so I think your friend's problem is a little odd. He should contact O2 in the UK, because everyone I know who has come here from the Netherlands, France and other places have been able to use the O2 network without any problems.

Answer 6

My younger brother is on the O2 network in Ireland and can't use his phone in UK so possibly there's some fault there in the network or some adjustment needs to be made, also it would cost a fortune to respond to every text as he is for all intents and purposes on foreign soil.

Answer 7

Is he pay as you go or bill phone? if its pay as you go, his credit may have run out and therefore it wont really leave him use the phone!

Im meteor and so is my boyfriend  - he was in Holland a while ago and his worked fine until his credit ran out and then it wouldnt leave him get phone calls and texts wouldnt send.  And roaming needs to be activated.  

02 is sh*t!