Following some issues with roaming in Spain in 2022 I have been a little concerned about travelling abroad and if I would have connectivity issues. After Spain though, I had travelled to Ireland and Germany and both times everything just worked.
When I arrived at Faro Airport, my phone connected without issue to the MEO network and I was connected.
However what I wasn’t expecting was that twenty four hours later I would get a text from Three that I had used 80%of my data allowance of 12GB.
I have a Three contract with unlimited calls, unlimited texts, and unlimited data. As this is a pre-October 2021 contract I am able to use all those allowances when roaming, but there is a 12GB fair use limit. On all my previous visits abroad, I have never come close to reaching that limit.
So I was somewhat surprised to find that I had used it nearly all up within a day.
I am not sure why, but my suspicion was that iCloud Photos was the culprit, or iCloud Backup.
So first I turned off mobile data and then I went into Settings -> Mobile Data and turned off all the apps which could use mobile data. There were a lot.
Of course with unlimited data back in the UK, I never need to worry about apps using data.
Alas the hotel doesn’t have free Wi-Fi (well it does in reception) but in the rooms there is a charged for service.
Once in the plane (and in flight mode) I enabled mobile data for all my apps so when I landed back in the UK I would be back where I was when I left.
Towards the end of the week I felt more confident in using mobile data. In the end I never used all the 12GB allowance, but it did make me think about how I will be using a phone if and when I go abroad again.