Hi guys, bit of an interesting problem here, I'll just jump right in:

Since Three Ireland have bought O2-Ireland, all of O2's masts have been brought into the Three network.

I'm on 3 UK and live in Northern Ireland near the Irish border, so my phone roams to Ireland a fair bit (but it's all free, so I don't mind)

When I roam onto an original Three Ireland mast, (network code 27205), my phone shows "3 Ireland", see here:

http://s15.postimg.org/93672xj0b/IMG_0023.jpg

And it used to be that if I roam to an O2 Ireland mast, it would say "O2.ie", however, they've now all been renamed, and now, an ex-O2 mast (code 27202) shows "3", see here:

http://s15.postimg.org/b6gmalit7/IMG_0021.jpg

As you can imagine this is pretty confusing as this is the exact same as being on 3 UK, it displays "3".

Not only is this confusing for Three UK customers, but O2-UK customers here are roaming to Ireland and seeing "3" at the top of their screens. They're pretty confused. They think they've been put on the 3 network in the UK, meanwhile it's costing them money.

I emailed Three UK about it, and they don't seem to have understood, they keep telling me they're sorry and that they'd like to help me, and I tell them, I don't need help, this is an issue that affects every 3UK and O2UK customer roaming to Ireland. They've now come back and told me, "I've checked your postcode and can see that it's close to Ireland. That's why you're seeing Three IE on your phone. We hope that's helped". Of course it hasn't

What can I do? Just yesterday my mum called and was wondering why her phone keeps saying "3", saying "I thought I was on giffgaff? Have I changed to 3?"

Does manually selecting your network and turning off all roaming stop it from jumping onto other networks?

If you're near the border I'd say manual select in the menu, rather than auto to avoid it acidentally roaming.

Just making it clear that the problem is not me joining Irish networks, that is normal and fine, it's that they've configured the name wrong, and ex-O2 masts are not displaying "Ireland" as they should.

It’s still Three. Surely Three Uk customers should be able to use the Three Ireland network at Three Ireland rates on visiting Ireland using their Three UK sim rather than racking up expensive roaming charges using that very same sim.

You can use it, but i believe it comes under feel at home as a 3 customer, which has its own issues in regards to throttling. If your on another network however, it would cost a fair bit i'd imagine of you keep connecting to Three Ireland rarther than your home network.

Thanks for the replies guys but this is really nothing to do with the actual roaming, I don't mind the roaming, it's just the network name when I do roam.

If it's just the name then why does it matter? It makes no cost difference to Three customers and O2 UK customers will know they've roamed to Ireland surely as they'll get the text telling them and advising them of the roaming charges, and the network name will not be O2.

If you live right on the border, it's best to manually select the network.

That's not something you can do anything about. Its the same as when EE came about in the UK with the merger of Orange and T-mobile, some people had "Orange T-Mobile" and others "T-Mobile Orange" as their network name as they moved around the UK.

This will change in time, but changing the name is easy, changing the MNC is harder and takes time.

Love the EDGE signal on 3 - ha ha

Techcally he's saying they haven't sent the roaming name of the ex-O2 network correctly.

When a roaming customer lands on the network either ex-O2 IE or 3 IE

They should both now say 3 IE or 3 IRELAND

Where's the ex-O2 IE network is simply showing 3

I'd suggest you raise that with Three Ireland's Exec Office if you want it to go anywhere

robert.finnegan@three.ie

Will get through to his team.

Hope that helps.

It's really not a big issue though as the network will send a text advising the user that they are roaming and they will realise they aren't on their own network O2 UK etc.

You could email the CEO, but I doubt they'll jump to action as it's quite a minor thing that I'm sure they'll sort out eventually as they merge the network fully.

Small issue but one they should fix, the roaming name should always appear to international standards, hence Three IE and O2 IE for visitors and just Three and O2 for Irish residents.

I am guessing a flag up to the EO will get it fixed sooner rather than later

You're right though, but its bad PR if texts don't get delivered etc etc.

Yeah, o2-UK customers should notice that it is saying something different than "O2-UK" and of course by the text they get.

You as a Three UK customer could distinguish it by the network technology. As 3 UK is only 3G/LTE and not Edge (like in your screen-shot). So if it shows 3 with E it is definitely the old o2.ie. I don't know if there is a lot of o2.ie 3G near the border.

Sadly most non-Android phones do not show if there roaming or not.

To be honest I really don't see the issue from a user point of view. As others have said, if the phone displays anything other than "O2-UK" then it's clear that you're roaming regardless of the network name.

If the foreign network name is important from a billing point of view (for example you need to be on a particular network for an international price plan to work) then that is a different case, but in this situation as both "3" and "3 Ireland" are the same company it really shouldn't matter.

There may of course be other reasons behind it. Maybe technicians still need to be able to differentiate quickly between each original network.

Similarly with Virgin Mobile, I know they're only a MVNO which is slightly different but I think they used to/still do something like this. If you are connected to an original T-Mobile mast then "Virgin" is displayed (with an upper case V) whereas an original Orange mast shows "virgin" (lower case v). I'm assuming this is for support/technical reasons.

I would hope thats gone, as EE customer no longer distinguish between the two types. The 'EE' branding was rolled out across both first replacing Orange/T-mobile and T-mobile/Orange which we had before.

This requires some amount of technical knowledge though. Most people have no real idea what "H" or "E" or "G" mean. Or that 3 UK doesn't operate a 2G network. Or how to spot that it's not actually 3 UK's 2G roaming on the old Orange network.

If 3 UK and 3 IE had the country in the network name, you wouldn't need to know of the intracacies of cellular networks to work out what's going on.

Not sure why people are against the idea. Vodafone seems to manage.

Technicians probably have more professional gear then an iPhone which shows them the MNC and MCC so they can distinguish all the networks and the countries the come from. (an iPhone only does that when you are in the Field Test-Mode)


Well I only suggested that as a workaround for the OT as it seemed he would like to know which network he is on.
Most people who are 3 UK customers wouldn't care if there on 3 IE or the old o2.ie as it is included in "Feel like home" and there is no difference in billing.
But I agree with you that including some sort of country identification in the name (if it's a name used in multiple countries, and especially neighbouring ones) would be nice.

Thank you so much, someone understands And to whoever said O2 customers will know they're roaming when they see 3, you have not met the general public Have no idea what type of network they're on or how their phone works, seeing "3" has just made people very confused, and I think Three should know about it, considering they probably don't already. Thanks for your replies

It's still active as far as I know, but you only see "virgin" when connected to an old Orange mast which hasn't been upgraded (quite rare now).

Once a site is upgraded the Orange network code (which triggers the lowercase 'virgin') is removed.

When I turn on my work iPhone it briefly displays the network as T-Mobile, before changing to BT. EE has been around for years now, why would it diaplay that still?

EE uses the former T-Mobile network code, so there's perhaps something on your phone which still associates that code with T-Mobile. It would be interesting to see what it displays when connected to an old Orange mast.

To be fair, they will get an SMS message the first time to notify them, it'll say "welcome to 3 Ireland" here are the roaming rates etc.

Well the main problem is that O2 Ireland no longer technically exists as a network even if the old ID of 272-02 or IRL 02 is still being used.

How the network named is displayed on screen can depend on a few things including the network name broadcast via the cell, the associated network code name on the sim card, the firmware network code association etc.

It appears in this case such phones when roaming on to the old O2 IRL network in this case the phone uses the name broadcast from the cell site - although it could also be the case that a network profile list on the iPhone has been updated to remove O2 IRL from the list and replace it with an ambiguous "3". On some other mobile phones it'll probably retain the old O2 IRL or O2 IE network name - heck those that are quite old might still display Digifone or Esat Digifone!

I know on a couple of vintage mobiles I have, using an EE sim still gives the "T-Mobile UK" name up - even older ones might still show one2one!

As others have said I think they'll fix it eventually as they do the upgrades and network work. The same happened with Orange and T-mobile when it became EE.

I don't think contacting them about it will help, but it's worth a try. Any users that do access the network in Ireland because they live very close to the border will get an SMS telling them that they are roaming with the rates etc, so it should be obvious. If they are concerned because they are close to another countries border then manual network selection is the way to go and that's one of the reasons that setting is available.

I have an especially vintage Nokia that'll display "UK CELLNET" with even a modern O2 SIM. (single band, but doesn't like modern Vodafone SIMs for some reason - the phone reboots shortly after registering onto the network)