2degrees roaming New Caledonia

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KiwiSurfer

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#298869 22-Jul-2022 22:17

I went to New Caledonia recently and brought along my 2degrees SIM as their website says they support voice/text roaming in New Caledonia (whereas neither Spark/Vodafone offer roaming there for prepay). I found that roaming wouldn't work at all. The 2degrees SIM would only report 'Emergency Calls Only' and wouldn't connect to the network there at all. Luckily I still had VoWiFi so could still send/receive SMS that way for 2FA etc.

As I used the same phone/SIM to successfully roam in Australia only a few months ago I don't think it was a roaming settings issue (as I would not have been able to roam in Australia otherwise). I checked and made sure roaming etc was all enabled in the settings.

It wasn't a band compatibility issue as I got a local SIM which worked just fine on the Bands 3 and 20 used over there. The whole week I was there I had 2degrees in SIM 1 reporting 'Emergency Calls Only' the whole time and the local OPT/Mobilis in SIM 2 working fine.

Will be emailing 2degrees but posting here to see if any others have experience to share?

Linux

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#2945536 23-Jul-2022 08:54

Did you call 2degrees when you were in New Caledonia?

This is the best time to do roaming fault checking not when back in your home country

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robertsona

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#2945541 23-Jul-2022 09:20

Not really a direct answer to your question, but when we went there two and half years ago, we deliberately steered away from using roaming - the rates were pretty steep.
Instead we hired a pocket wifi (https://www.ncpocketwifi.com/), which the five of us hotspotted to and then used for mobile data and voice over wifi.

KiwiSurfer

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#2945543 23-Jul-2022 09:25

robertsona: Not really a direct answer to your question, but when we went there two and half years ago, we deliberately steered away from using roaming - the rates were pretty steep.
Instead we hired a pocket wifi (https://www.ncpocketwifi.com/), which the five of us hotspotted to and then used for mobile data and voice over wifi.

As explained in OP, I used a local SIM for data which worked fine. It was just me so silly to get another device just for data when I can just pop in a local SIM. Just curious about roaming as what the 2deg website says didn't match my experience. Was just wanting to receive SMS while overseas for 2FA, family emergencies, etc.

KiwiSurfer

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#2945544 23-Jul-2022 09:25

Linux: Did you call 2degrees when you were in New Caledonia?

This is the best time to do roaming fault checking not when back in your home country

Fair enough. On holiday is not the best time to call 2degrees and be put on hold for who knows how long. Oh well.

KiwiSurfer

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#2948310 30-Jul-2022 12:43

Response from 2degrees:

Hi James, It sounds like you may have needed to search for the Network OPT who are out preferred network there. Please try next time you are there. Thanks

Strange advice as OPT is actually the only network (govt owned monopoly) there so shouldn't really need to manually select it surely. Leaving the response from 2degrees here for others.

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#2948313 30-Jul-2022 12:46

@KiwiSurfer 100% correct if your handset does not attach to a roaming network even if only a single carrier in that country the end user should always action a ' manual ' network selection

This forces the VLR (visitor) to talk to the HLR (home)

KiwiSurfer

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#2948314 30-Jul-2022 12:48

Linux:

@KiwiSurfer 100% correct if your handset does not attach to a roaming network even if only a single carrier in that country the end user should always action a ' manual ' network selection

This forces the VLR (visitor) to talk to the HLR (home)

Thank you I'll try that next time.