The lack of 4G roaming is a real issue for Three customers, and one that has been getting worse as 3G spectrum around the world has been getting refarmed to improve 4G coverage and data capacity.

But it appears that’s about to change, thanks to information contained within a help page on Three’s Smarty network, its ‘simple, honest mobile’ virtual network.

It’s a pretty safe bet that if Smarty will launch it, the main network will too!

The help page contains the following text:

At the moment, you can’t roam or make international calls on any of the SMARTY plans, however this will be live in June. Also, we currently don’t support Supervoice (VoLTE) or WiFi calling. We’re hoping to offer these services in the near future. From June, international data and texts will work over 3G (2100 MHz), 4G (1800 MHz) and 4G (800 MHz). Voice calls will only work over 3G.

The same text also mentions 4G Calling (VoLTE) and Wi-Fi Calling (VoWiFi) as services that Smarty hopes to offer users in the future. Of course, Three users already enjoy both of these services – if they have the right handset.

Until Three makes an official announcement of its own, there will still be some questions unanswered, such as whether 4G roaming will be a blanket switch on, or limited to certain partner networks from the outset and increased gradually over the coming months.

More details will no doubt come out soon from Three, given June isn’t far away (there’s even a chance Three could launch a bit sooner), but for now at least Three users can be happy that at some point in the near future they’ll be able to enjoy improved roaming.

4G roaming doesn’t just mean higher speeds, but the possibility of getting improved coverage when travelling as a lot of networks have rolled out far superior 4G networks than they ever did with 3G.