If you are going to travel abroad and want to activate your internet connection with mobile data, you will have to make some settings on your iPhone to be able to connect without problems. Now, roaming is a factor that has changed significantly in recent years, so we will also explain what you can do, and the precautions you have to take into account.
Activate data roaming on your iPhone
The first adjustment of all that we must activate is the Data roaming. This option implies that our iPhone will be able to connect to other telephone networks that are not the one of the operator that you have contracted. This is a very important element to activate if you are going to travel abroad, since not all operators are in all countries.
To activate this setting, you have to go to Settings > Mobile Data > Data roaming. If our phone is compatible with 5G networks, we can also configure the “Voice and data” parameter, and be able to configure it in 5G, 4G or LTE+ if we need to save data or have better performance in certain very specific situations.
When you go abroad and turn on cellular data on your iPhone again, it will take a few minutes for your phone to search for the connection network. However, it may be the case that it does not connect. That is why, to save time, we recommend you modify the “Network selection”. This setting, by default, can be set to Automatic. But if we have to connect to the coverage of another operator and we are outside our country, we may have to “give it a little push”.
Check the countries in Zone 1 in Roaming
Something very important: choosing the coverage network for your iPhone is not the same as choosing the operator. The telephone operator is the one who activates the access to the mobile network. However, not all operators have their own coverage networks, and use the networks of other operators.
In this case, when we go abroad, the operator that we have in our country, has agreements with operators abroad, through which our iPhone will automatically connect to the new coverage network. The “Network selection” section allows you to choose the coverage line to which you want to connect abroad. But roaming has some “buts” that you have to know:
- You can only use your free connection in countries that belong to the Zone 1 of the European Economic Area (17 countries)
- In countries like Andorra or Switzerland, you need to hire a additional plan. You cannot use your carrier’s plan, as the bill would be extremely expensive.
- In the United Kingdom, with the issue of Brexit, some operators They offer adapted roaming plans. Not all, so you have to check it to be able to use your mobile data in that territory.
Free roaming is limited to 17 countries in Europe: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Vatican City, Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Lichtenstein, Malta, Norway, Luxembourg , the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Romania.
