Samsung roaming issues

My Samsung (several over the years) and TMobile have been from DC to Moscow, to South Africa and a lot of Europe I'm the middle ..... flawless.

I am guessing it's your carrier, not Samsung.

Or could it be your phone is outdated?

I also have a Samsung phone and T-Mobile, and have no issues in various locations in N. America and Europe.

I have an iPhone, but whenever something seems to go off-track my fall back is Reset Network Settings. Give it a go if you haven't already THIS trip.

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Samsung Reset network settings

Navigate to and open Settings, and then tap General management.
Swipe to and tap Reset, and then tap Reset network settings.
Review the information, and then tap Reset settings.
Tap Reset to confirm. You will need to reconnect to your Wi-Fi network and Bluetooth accessories after the reset.

Thanks, I'll try the reset. I assume my carrier walked me through that last Fall but I don't remember. My SIL and I have different carriers in different provinces, and her phone is 6 months old; S23FE. To me that rules out carriers and old phones. My phone is a couple of generations older so I had considered that. The only carrier that's coming up as an option to link via roaming here is T Mobile. My wife's phone is an Apple, as old as dirt with the same carrier as me with no issues.

Anyway, my contact is up and I'll be looking at the latest and greatest before my trip this Fall.

As workaround for navigation I recommend Sygic navigation app replacing the oh-oh maps. It works with pre-downloaded country / region maps (when good connection once available) - so no connection for navigation necessary. I used it during several trips in Europe, mid-east and USA with no relevant issues.

I have a Samsung phone with T-Mobile. The only place I was having data speed issues was in the UK. T-Mobile couldn't figure it out.

But the phone itself worked fine.

Since your carrier is in Canada, does it offer roaming in the US?

Since your carrier is in Canada, does it offer roaming in the US?

Yes, the roaming works fine and I can make calls, but that's it. Apps don't work, such as Maps and Uber. Once I go where there is a wifi, all works OK, even with roaming still turned on, but no wifi, no apps, even though data clearly works.

Last winter I had trouble getting a cellular data connection when I arrived in Rome. I had (and have) Google Fi service, which supposedly connects you to its best-available option at each location and charges you $10 for each gigabyte of data used. For whatever reason, roaming wasn't working in Rome. I did a bunch of Googling using my hotel Wi-Fi since Fi's Tier One support seemed clueless. What eventually seemed to clear up the problem was following internet advice to go into Settings and turning off automatic selection of the roaming network. I then tried each local network option listed (there were 3, I think) until something worked. I believe I went through that process more than once before I had a reliable connection.

Now, it's possible what I was experiencing was a transient outage of whatever is Fi's best roaming option in Rome; maybe I could have done nothing and the problem would have resolved itself just as fast. I have occasionally had very short-term problems with cellular data in other places. I had them while I had T-Mobile service, too. I tend to notice it when Google's MyMaps won't respond to requested repositioning or zooming. But those are not persistent issues, just annoyances.

I'm as confident as a non-telecom engineer can be that my problem is unrelated to the phone itself, though I do have a Samsung.

Allan, I wonder which cellphone provider you have? And do you need to pay extra for an "add-on" to have international roaming in Italy? For AT&T or Verizon, you have to buy an "add-on". For T-mobile you do not need one for voice/text, but in most countries, including Italy, you need one to have enough data speed to use maps.

Thank you for the great info, acraven. Maybe automatic roaming, or the lack thereof, may be the answer. I have a spare phone with a really low cost MVNO, Tello, which is $6/month for voice/text/500meg data. For that small amount, I suspect they do not pay other carriers for roaming, so my Tello-phone (ha, ha). may not have data coverage everywhere my T-mobile phone does. In troubleshooting this, I did what you described. I de-selected "Select automatically" under the "Network Operators" setting on my Samsung. Interesting to see which carriers I could receive, and whether or not my phone's sim card would allow connecting to them. If I recall, my Tello sim only allowed connection to T-mobile.

I don't think Allan's problem is a very old phone if voice works. My old AT&T phone (Samsung S9) was an international version, which wouldn't do VOLTE (Voice Over LTE) over the AT&T network, so voice wouldn't work. They actually sent me a new U.S. version S9 phone for free. I wonder if Allan's phone is an international version? Oddly enough, I am told by Tmobile that my old Samsung S9 international, WILL work on the Tmobile network. Complicated stuff...

I'm on Telus and do have international roaming. My SIL uses Bell and also has roaming turned on. I tried the deselecting of auto roaming, and the only option I'm given is T Mobile. My wife, as mentioned before has an IPhone and is also on Telus, is working fine. She is also connected to T Mobile but has other options when she deselects auto roaming. My SIL has given up and is sticking to airplane mode.

Interesting, Allan. Sounds like maybe your wife's phone can operate on some cellphone bands that your phone can't. If you look at the detailed specifications of both your phones, I think you'll see that she has hardware with some "Bands" that you don't have. That's one difference between U.S. and the various international flavors of phones. Some countries (and cellphone providers) can work with different "Bands". If that's the case, there's no fix for that other than to get a newer phone with different band capability. Very tricky thing, if traveling internationally. There are some apps which will show you which towers are being received, and what frequency they are on. I mostly receive a 731.5 mhz. Tmo tower. There are other towers with much higher frequencies, but the range of a tower can be much less if it's a much higher frequency. I think some of the 5G towers are on much higher frequencies, and have more limited range.

If you want to find those details, you have to use the full model number. My current phone is a Galaxy S10, but I would need to lookup SM-G973U1 to learn those details. Look at "About Phone" to get that.

its a settings problem on your phone. how old is your Telus SIM? Have you reached out to a Telus store to explain your problem? I've roamed with my phone on Telus in many parts of the USA and into Mexico.