Summary:
- It seems that DST has disabled automatic roaming and you need to contact them in order to enable it (Update April 2025 – I can confirm that it works. Normal roaming functionality now works so you can receive SMS notifications for free)
- This means if you go overseas your SIM will not even connect to any network and you would not even be able to receive SMS which could be an issue if you need 2FA/OTP messages
Last year I went to Malaysia and Singapore and noticed that my DST EASI was not getting any reception – it couldn’t connect to any provider despite my other SIM roaming without issue. Tried restarting the phone, enabling disable airplane mode but it didn’t help. It didn’t matter too much to me as my other SIM with had local data for the country in question.
But when in Singapore I think I needed a 2FA message and decided to just try purchasing an EASI data roaming add-on (even though I didn’t need the data). And to my surprise I was able to get connected to the network and start receiving SMSes
I presume this could be something DST has changed last year with the typical stories we hear about DST roaming charges where the end user does not actively enable data roaming and get charged. If you’re not familiar with this, a quick search shows these 2 such stories and with the first one being the weirdest of even buying a roaming plan, but it didn’t seem to get used but they still got charged
I called DST on 151 and they told me they would activate my account to auto enable roaming in the backend and that it doesn’t have any costs unless I make calls or send SMS. So I guess only time will tell whether this actually works.
On a related note it seems they have tried to help prevent data roaming bill shock by auto subscribing you to the lowest data add-on if you connect to the data network while overseas for MOBI customers https://dst.com.bn/mobi-roaming/ which is good if you know about it and I guess is a generally good move to prevent excessive charges.
It always seems that DST is the only carrier affected by this (or maybe just that they have such a high percentage of the mobile market that we only hear stories about them). But I’ve heard stories of people who are careful and still get charged, so it is always worrying and it was one of the questions posed on KristalFMs “Telcos Tell All: Inside Brunei’s Telecommunications Transformation” roundtable with the 3 telcos and UNN.
All telcos have their issue and it will just be a matter of finding what works best for you. I created “Pick my provider” to help me continue to decide which telco to use and in general my usage of EASI for over 10+ years has gone well (it is the most cost effective with 6GB data add-on and practically no SMS / call usage). I’ve used DST’s mobile broadband service before it was rebranded to Freedom and was also using their home broadband Inifinity and both were general good and I got what I wanted.
I migrated away from DST to Progresif and now Imagine of home broadband and I have all 3 of their apps installed so there will hopefully be more stories to come so stay tuned.
The Wheat Field 