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Why Is My Vodafone Not Receiving Texts Abroad? 5 Reasons + Fixes

Why Is My Vodafone Not Receiving Texts Abroad? 5 Reasons + Fixes

If your Vodafone SIM is not receiving texts while you’re abroad, it can be really annoying as you cannot communicate with your friends and family at cheaper rates.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the reasons for this problem so you can troubleshoot and fix it to get back to texting in no time.

Why Is My Vodafone Not Receiving Texts Abroad?

Check To See If There Are Vodafone Roaming Services In The Country

First, check to see whether there are Vodafone roaming services in the country you are in.

Not all countries have Vodafone roaming services available.

Check Your Phone Is Set Up To Receive Texts Abroad

If there are Vodafone roaming services in the country you’re visiting, the next thing to do is check whether your phone can receive texts while abroad.

In case it’s set to “global” or “worldwide,” it should work in most countries.

If it’s set to “automatic” or “select network,” it may not work in some countries. You can also try to manually select the network mode for the country you’re visiting.

Check That Your Phone Is Not in Airplane Mode

You should also check whether your phone is on Airplane Mode. This can sometimes happen accidentally, and it will prevent your phone from receiving texts.

Most people tend to put their phones on Airplane Mode when traveling and then forget to disable it.

Is Your Phone’s Roaming Service Turned On?

Another possibility is that your phone’s roaming service isn’t active.

To turn it on, open your phone’s settings and look for the “roaming” option. If it’s off, turn it on and select the country you’re visiting.

Resolve Issues With Your SIM Card

Finally, if your phone is still not receiving texts, there may be a problem with its SIM card. To troubleshoot this, try removing the SIM card and restarting your phone.

When you restart your phone, re-insert the SIM card and see if that solves the problem.

Contact Vodafone Customer Service

If you’re still having trouble receiving texts while abroad, contact Vodafone customer service for more help.

They will be able to help troubleshoot the issue and provide additional support.

How Does Vodafone Send And Receive Texts Abroad?

Vodafone lets you send and receive texts abroad through roaming. The service has agreements with other mobile networks all around the world.

When you’re in a country with which Vodafone doesn’t have an agreement, your phone will automatically connect to another network that does. This means you can continue using your phone as normal, even when you’re abroad.

For this, Vodafone has a few things in place. First, they have ‘automatic network selection’. This means that when you turn your phone on, it will automatically connect to the strongest signal. You don’t need to do anything; it will just happen automatically.

Second, Vodafone has a ‘network preference setting’. This allows you to choose which network you want your phone to automatically connect to.

You can select from a list of networks with which Vodafone has agreements, or you can let your phone choose the best network for you.

You can also use your phone’s data roaming settings to control how much data you use while abroad. This is really important, as data roaming can be quite expensive.

You can choose to have your phone use no data, or just a limited amount of data each day. This way, you’ll never have to worry about going over your limit and paying extra.

SMS roaming is a service provided by Vodafone that allows you to send and receive texts while you’re abroad. You can use it on any phone that has an internet connection.

To start using SMS roaming, open your messaging app and select the ‘SMS’ tab. From there, you can type in the number you want to send a message to or select it from your contacts.

How To Activate Roaming On Vodafone

Android Phone:

  • On your Android phone, open the Settings icon.
  • After that, select SIM card & mobile data, and then select your SIM.
  • Turn on the “Data roaming” option by toggling the switch.

iPhone:

  • Go to Settings.
  • Select Cellular, Cellular Data, and Mobile Data. 
  • Next, select Roaming.
  • Check to see that the Data roaming and Voice roaming options are both turned on.

Final Thoughts

If you are having issues with your Vodafone not receiving text messages abroad, there are a few things you can do to troubleshoot the issue. First, check to make sure that your phone is set up for roaming and that your network settings are correct.

If that doesn’t solve the problem, try restarting your phone or contacting Vodafone customer service. Hopefully, one of these solutions will help get your texts flowing again while you’re on vacation.

Author

  • Tauqeer Ahmed

    Tauqeer Ahmed is a technology expert with over 10 years of experience in the industry. He has a degree in Computer Science and specializes in network security and software troubleshooting. You can find out more about him at https://helpfixthat.com/tauqeer-ahmed/

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