Unusable US service

[pughball]

Hi,

I purchased a US data pack to use while across at a football game yesterday.  It was literally unusable whilst there.  I was roaming on the AT&T network and I inquired to others around me who were local US residents on the network and it was working perfectly.

Basically, everything I tried to do was timing out.  Was I somehow a "substandard" user or some such.  This was a complete waste of money.

[doctorbe]

I've had problems using the US Add-on during multiple trips to the US, on 4 separate (iPhone) accounts, in urban areas where signal is not the issue and the add-on was purchased correctly.  No amount of APN/cellular data setting-changes fixed the problem.  There are multiple references in other threads to back-end "adjustments" that need to be made to one's account to fix the gremlins in the system.  I believe there are system problems between Public Mobile and AT&T that make the add-ons unreliable, and I have stopped buying them and use my Roam Mobility SIM when I travel to the US instead ($5.00 per day, unlimited talk/text/data).

When I've complained to PM, to their credit they've been prompt to issue a refund and I have pm'd a mod to confirm that the "backend changes" referenced elsewhere have been applied to my account.

Still don't trust it to work though...

[pakmode]

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@srlawren wrote:

@pughball there's one other detail nobody has asked about above that you could have overlooked:  there is a setting on your phone that should be labelled "Data while roaming" or "Roaming Data" or something similar.  Did you verify you had that turned on?  It needs to be on, and many people leave it turned off while at home.  It's actually completely unnecessary to leave it turned off while in Canada due to PM's prepaid model, but many people do so out of habit or paranoia.

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Uggh so true! @srlawren

As Occam's Razor dictates: The best solution is often the simplest solution. lol

[srlawren]

@pughball there's one other detail nobody has asked about above that you could have overlooked:  there is a setting on your phone that should be labelled "Data while roaming" or "Roaming Data" or something similar.  Did you verify you had that turned on?  It needs to be on, and many people leave it turned off while at home.  It's actually completely unnecessary to leave it turned off while in Canada due to PM's prepaid model, but many people do so out of habit or paranoia.

[MoreYummy]

If everyone in the same stadium on same network works, and no setting issue, then its communication issue somewhere betwen PM and ATT.   

Since its cross border and involves many carriers, its hard to find out.   It is like that sometimes for roaming service.  Need to have clean hand off etc.  

Let us know what went wrong if able to find out.  it would be useful next time.

[pakmode]

Where were you OP?

Buffalo? Seattle? Detroit?

That's too bad it didn't work. Hopefully the mod's take care of you. 

[neatooo]

are we supposed to change our APNs while roaming? to AT&T maybe

[will13am]

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@pughball wrote:

I loaded the money and then bought the add on as a two step process.  It worked when not in the stadium.

wifi was not an issue, I tried connecting to no avail and had it turned off otherwise.

ALL other native ATT users were working perfectly.  The public mobile service simply didn’t work when native subscribers were using the service.

i would like a refund but I’m guessing that’s going to be a hassle...

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You can bring up the issue with the moderator team and see what they say.  I would imagine that they will tell you Public Mobile does not manage the roaming network, so not much they can do.  Doesn't hurt to ask.

[pughball]

I loaded the money and then bought the add on as a two step process.  It worked when not in the stadium.

wifi was not an issue, I tried connecting to no avail and had it turned off otherwise.

ALL other native ATT users were working perfectly.  The public mobile service simply didn’t work when native subscribers were using the service.

i would like a refund but I’m guessing that’s going to be a hassle...

[xCameron94x]

@neatooo its not really an adding the add on issue. It was most likely an AT&T netowrk issue. If other users on AT&T were expierncing faster & stronger speeds, than the poster should also expierence the same speeds, or close to it.

@pughball just wanted to ask a few questions.

• Was there wifi at the stadium, and your phone was trying to connect to the wifi network automatically?
• did you try manually selecting the network?
• Also what phone were you using 

[neatooo]

buying an add-on is a two step process. you buy it first, which gets money from your card. then you buy it again using the loaded money.

If you did that, please contact the mods. Please include sim#, phone#, email used during activation, and detailed description of what happened.

Sending a message to the mod teams:
https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/notes/composepage/note-to-user-id/22437

Contacting mods (details):
https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Knowledge-Base/Updated-Contacting-our-Community-Moder...

How to send a private message:
http://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Getting-Started/Private-Messages-viewing-and-creating/...