Roaming in one country but not another

[ccr32]

I'm due to fly to Geneva in a couple of weeks, before picking up a car and driving through France.

My mobile network (Talkmobile) offer free/inclusive roaming while in France, but not in Switzerland where instead you are billed by MB etc.

So I don't rack up a huge bill if my phone decides to connect to a Swiss network rather than a French one, is there any way that people know of that I can restrict or whitelist which networks it connects to? It's an iPhone so that rules out any hooky Android apps that are out there.

Only solution I've come up with so far is to allow data roaming to be 'on' on the phone, but then contact the network and set my roaming data/cost cap at zero - jury is out however if that will also mean I can connect to networks in France or if it will end up restricting that too.

Have also done a bit of research and the other budget networks (ID Mobile, GiffGaff,, Lyca) seem to be similar in that they allow inclusive roaming in France but not in Switzerland.

TIA.

[mikey_b]

Since Geneva is more or less on the French border, the easiest way is probably to set your phone's network selection to Manual, and choose a French network from the list it finds. Then you can leave roaming on and have everything work, but not accidentally roam onto a Swiss network.

If it doesn't find one quickly, leave it turned off until you actually cross the border into France proper.

[Elderly]

I wish I’d known I could switch the phone to manual;
I was staying in the Troodos mountains in Cyprus and unbeknownst to me
my phone would switch between the Greek Cyprus provider and the Turkish Cyprus provider …..

[ccr32]

Thanks for the replies. I am aware of manual network switching but in my experience it is very slow and clunky. But failing all else, I guess that will work (assuming I can work out which are French networks and which are Swiss!)

[Jordie Barretts sock]

My wife and I were on Kos last year, over towards the Turkish coast... "Welcome to Turkey, calls cost..."

[JWH]

Your provider almost certainly allows you to choose to cap your monthly out of contract spend at zero.
Do that, leave roaming on, forget about it

[Griffith4ever]

Good idea. My default cap is £5. Was in Thailand , dual Sims. Thai SIM for data, UK SIM to receive SMS (OTPs, you are absolutely fked without the is trying to work / bank / eBay / Amazon, you name it).

Swiched data to the UK SIM for less than 2 mins by mistake. "you have reached your £5 extras limit and data had been disabled" . Thank dog for spending caps!

[anonymous-user]

ccr32 said:

Thanks for the replies. I am aware of manual network switching but in my experience it is very slow and clunky. But failing all else, I guess that will work (assuming I can work out which are French networks and which are Swiss!)

This is the issue I thought of immediately, It really isn't easy to distinguish between them for certain.

[ccr32]

JWH said:

Your provider almost certainly allows you to choose to cap your monthly out of contract spend at zero.
Do that, leave roaming on, forget about it

Thanks again all. Will try this approach and see how I get on.