Roaming USA/Canada 086 Pay as you go mobile

[miselemeas]

Visited the USA and Canada recently. While I was there I had no problem with text messaging or receiving calls. However I couldn't make calls to an Irish mobile. On my return I contacted O2 (pay as you go) and they advised that they are having problems with some US providers (eg Cingular) in this regard and do not have an agreement with the Canadian provider (Rogers).

Just to be aware of the above if you intend travelling and have a pay-as-you go 086 account with 02. Another family member didn't have the same problem with an 086 02 bill phone.

 

[ClubMan]

Re: Roaming USA/Canada 086 Pay as you go

Might be more cost effective to just buy a pay as you go phone over there rather than using an Irish pay as you go mobile if you really need mobile connectivity!

 

[miselemeas]

Re: Roaming USA/Canada 086 Pay as you go

Thank you for the suggestion but the cost of calls from the US to an Irish mobile would be a lot higher from one of those phones - I have a Cingular pay-as-you-go which I use for local and US calls only while I am there.

The reason I put the notice up is to make intending travellers aware of the current problem with the O2 086 pay-as-you go service which hopefully will be sorted

 

[so-crates]

One strange thing I did notice (and this was with an 086 Billpay and an 086 Pay as You Go) is that sometimes I would not be able to phone out to an Irish mobile. I tried changing the network selection from Automatic to Manual and I found that it then listed two seemingly identical Cingular networks, one worked, the other didn't - I have no idea why the two appeared though, but it happened more than once.