New 3 Feel at Home countries

[Mistroma]

I suspect the answer ought to be yes. When you turned it on in France, Bouygues would have contacted Three UK. If you had roaming allowed Three would record the SIM as roaming at Bouygues, tell Bouygues to accept the registration, and Bouygues would register it as a temporary subscriber. That situation would persist until the phone registered with another network. It that interval Three knows where to route incoming calls and Bouygues knows to bill Three for calls and data.

If you went to a non-FaH country and turned the phone on Three should know that FaH roaming had stopped.

It seems to depend on Three's definition of the word 'use'. If you don't want to 'use' the phone abroad, remove or disable the SIM to stop it registering with a foreign network.

Sorry, hypothetical question and I obviously failed my attempt at humour. The SIM was in a drawer when I wasn't using the phone. Does it matter if the drawer is in a Feel at Home or non-Feel at Home destination, Three seem to think it does?

They reactivated roaming (but his is my last chance) because they couldn't prove I was in a Feel at Home destination when the phone was inactive.

My more serious point was that Three's definition of "in use" includes time when a SIM is not actually in any device. That's the part likely to catch people out.

 

[nigelmercier]

It is obvious to me that three are quite reasonably using cell access to decide where the SIM is being used. If you don't give it a chance to reset back to the UK, then it is your own fault.

 

[Mistroma]

It is obvious to me that three are quite reasonably using cell access to decide where the SIM is being used. If you don't give it a chance to reset back to the UK, then it is your own fault.

Unfortunately, Three didn't make it very obvious to customers and people still suggest turning the phone off for a while when still abroad. Only pointing out that this seems unlikely to be a guaranteed workaround if you are out of the UK for an extended period. Remember, it's 2 full months in a rolling 12 month period.

Obviously not possible to reset back to UK until return to UK so that severely limits use of Three's roaming for many people. I seem to remember you (or someone else on this forum) suggesting posting the SIM to a friend back in UK and having it returned after sending an SMS. That would work but rather clunky and I suspect most would simply avoid Three outside UK. They weren't the cheapest this year so I used another provider for roaming, though keeping the SIM active still caused a problem.