Introduction

The “Flipped Interaction Pattern” is, essentially, a variant of the twenty questions game, played between the LLM and the user. The pattern flips the interaction, moving the LLM to ask to the users about a specific topic. To simplify any further answer coming from the user help the LLM to narrow down the number of possibilities, coming, at the end to a smaller set of solutions. Fun to use, fun to play.

The Prompt

A well-known definition is the following:

- You should ask questions until condition Y is met or to achieve this goal (alternatively, forever)
- (Optional) ask me the questions one at a time, two at a time, ask me the first question, etc.

In this way a loop (infinite or not) of questions is coming from the LLM to the user. The final answer depends, as quite natural, to the correct answers coming from the user.

An example can be the following one:

I would like you to ask me questions to help me diagnose a problem with my mobile phone and data plan. Ask me questions until you have enough information to identify the two most likely causes. Ask me one question at time

With the prompt the LLM acts like a basic customer service agent or a sort of problems’ solver. Require quite intense interaction and, as imagined, each answer must be detailed enough.

How to play with the prompt

Put the prompt in the LLM with a real, identifiable problem and answer to the other questions.

Some Tests

ChatGPT 5.2

ChatGPT reacts very well to this prompt, asking one by one more detailed questions. Playing with the example of bad mobile data connection ChatGPT is able to provide a plausible reason

Great — I have enough information now.

Based on what you’ve told me, the two most likely causes are:

1️⃣ Roaming traffic is being rate-limited or deprioritised by Three when abroad

Even though you see 4G/5G, Three often applies network-side speed restrictions to roaming data, especially in the EU post-Brexit.

Why this fits your case:
	•	Happens only abroad
	•	Happens all the time, not after a data threshold
	•	Signal shows 4G/5G, but speed is still slow
	•	Commonly reported with Three UK roaming in Italy

What’s actually happening:
	•	Your phone connects fine to Italian networks (e.g. WindTre, TIM, Vodafone IT)
	•	But all data is tunneled back through Three’s UK core
	•	That tunnel is frequently congested or throttled, especially at peak times

📌 This is the most common cause for Three customers.

⸻

2️⃣ Poor roaming partner selection (connected to a suboptimal Italian network)

Your phone may be automatically connecting to a roaming partner that has:
	•	Congestion
	•	Lower priority for roaming users
	•	Worse peering with Three’s network

Why this fits:
	•	Italy has multiple networks with very different roaming performance
	•	Automatic network selection often chooses the first available, not the best
	•	You still see 4G/5G, but throughput is poor

⸻

Quick things you can try (to confirm which one it is)
	1.	Manually select a different network
	•	Settings → Mobile Network → Network Selection → turn off “Automatic”
	•	Try TIM, Vodafone IT, and WindTre one by one
	•	Test speed after each switch
👉 If one network is much faster, cause #2 is confirmed.
	2.	Test at very late night / early morning
	•	If speeds improve dramatically, that points to Three-side congestion (cause #1).

⸻

If you want a reliable fix

For future trips, the most reliable solution is:
	•	A local Italian SIM or eSIM, or
	•	A travel eSIM (Airalo, Holafly, etc.)

This bypasses Three’s roaming tunnel entirely.

If you’d like, I can:
	•	Walk you through manual network selection step by step, or
	•	Recommend the best eSIM option for Italy based on your usage.

Claude - Haiku 4.5

With the same sequence of questions and answers Claude Haiku 4.5 provides the same reason. Apparently the key decision is linked to clarify that the network issues are happening while I’m abroad

Perfect, I have enough information to identify the two most likely causes of your slow mobile data connectivity:

**1. International roaming speed throttling** — Many mobile providers intentionally reduce data speeds for customers using international roaming to manage network load and costs. Even with an active roaming plan, you may be experiencing deliberately throttled speeds that are slower than your home country speeds.

**2. Weak signal/network coverage in your location abroad** — The specific area where you're located may have weaker 4G/LTE coverage or older network infrastructure compared to what you're used to at home. Being in the same location consistently but still experiencing slow speeds suggests the local network infrastructure in that area may be the limiting factor.

To help determine which is more likely, you could try: moving to a different location to see if speeds improve (pointing to local coverage), or contacting your provider to ask specifically if they throttle roaming speeds in that country, and what typical roaming speeds should be.

Conclusion

The prompt is really useful to solve real problems, acting like a sort of customer service representative. Fair to say that different LLM can and will provide different answers but this is part of the game