Tele2 NL has a particular system to handle domestic and roaming reception. It’s all in the SIM card: the SIM card can be configured in two modes: domestic or abroad. While in domestic mode, it will only catch an available connection at home, i.e., The Netherlands. When the abroad mode is set, the device will be able to pick up reception from all providers except the Dutch ones.

Fortunately, this is transparent to the user: the configuration is done automatically by the SIM card: if you don’t have reception it will keep switching modes (domestic or abroad) until the phone registers to a network. Of course, if you are in bordering areas this may become tricky because you may get registered in a foreign network thereby being invoiced as being abroad. For this purpose, you can manually set the mode to avoid any unexpected charges and such.

I have been playing with this thing on my phone. Interestingly, whenever the phone switches from one mode to the other, it thinks that a another SIM card is introduced. It’s like two SIM cards built into one. The distinction can be seen when seeing the access point settings. When in domestic mode, the phone will show me that my access point is internet.tele2.nl while in abroad mode the access point is 4g.tele.se. It’s like my SIM card is a Tele2 SE one.

I guess this makes commercial sense for Tele2: they just make the roaming agreements once and re-use them for the other Tele2 subsidiaries in other countries.

However, the mobile phones seem to get confused by artificial SIM card swap. I have experienced no data connection while I was roaming through Europe. I came up with a solution that worked to me: add another access point when the phone is in Swedish mode with the same access point details as when it is in Dutch mode. That is, add an access point with the APN set to internet.tele2.nl. Voilà you get internet connection right away (provided that data while roaming is allowed in your device settings).