EE to reintroduce roaming charges across Europe

[bazza white]

Im due to move away from Three, they are pretty decent but signal at my new house is just crap so no option.

Checking out Voda and they have some nasty speed caps. 2meg on 5g wtf. EE a bit more expensive and awaiting an O2 sim to test but doesnt look good.


virgin merger with 02 is another bit of bad news of consumers, The t mobile/orange merger should never have been allowed.

[matrignano]

RacerMike said:

My contract was just up for renewal, so signed up to 2 years. Thankfully that'll cover me for my big US trip next year!

Love everyone on the BBC chat saying 'this has nothing to do with Brexit'. Only it does as charging for EU roaming within the EU would be illegal. So sure....I doubt network costs have gone up significantly, but there's nothing to stop their greed now! Ace.

Just done the same so covered for the next 2 years

[Yeti97]

Been with Three since I have had a mobile phone. Shame as they covered EU and USA roaming for free before. Withdrawing USA roaming is a real kick in the teeth. In a contract for another year, will definitely be looking to move afterward. Assuming there is anybody left who offers decent roaming in 12 months!

[RacerMike]

Yeti97 said:

Been with Three since I have had a mobile phone. Shame as they covered EU and USA roaming for free before. Withdrawing USA roaming is a real kick in the teeth. In a contract for another year, will definitely be looking to move afterward. Assuming there is anybody left who offers decent roaming in 12 months!

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently. Having data there was an absolute life saver in the past as finding things out in the US is so heavily geared towards phone data. Not sure if there'll be an option to 'borrow' a sim from them since US cell contracts are often family/household based rather than individual (and monstrously expensive as a result for about 10Gb and 30 mins of free calls!)

[Teddy Lop]

bazza white said:

Im due to move away from Three, they are pretty decent but signal at my new house is just crap so no option.

Checking out Voda and they have some nasty speed caps. 2meg on 5g wtf. EE a bit more expensive and awaiting an O2 sim to test but doesnt look good.


virgin merger with 02 is another bit of bad news of consumers, The t mobile/orange merger should never have been allowed.

I thought virgin were just a piggyback/reseller anyway?

[Yeti97]

RacerMike said:

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently.

Bit of a nightmare really. Praying at least one provider keeps their roaming! Otherwise will be sucking up that £5 day cost.

[Driver101]

RacerMike said:

My contract was just up for renewal, so signed up to 2 years. Thankfully that'll cover me for my big US trip next year!

Love everyone on the BBC chat saying 'this has nothing to do with Brexit'. Only it does as charging for EU roaming within the EU would be illegal. So sure....I doubt network costs have gone up significantly, but there's nothing to stop their greed now! Ace.

A lot of the comments on the BBC news article are special.

[camel_landy]

Yeti97 said:

RacerMike said:

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently.

Bit of a nightmare really. Praying at least one provider keeps their roaming! Otherwise will be sucking up that £5 day cost.

The other PITA is that they also use different LTE frequency bands out there, so you might want to check compatibility.

Depending on how often you go, it might be easier to simply get a US spec phone and a local PAYG SIM.

M

[Condi]

Yeti97 said:

RacerMike said:

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently.

Bit of a nightmare really. Praying at least one provider keeps their roaming! Otherwise will be sucking up that £5 day cost.

If 3 are not going to, who else would? It was their USP years before the EU banned it, so unless anyone else sees that as an opportunity to take their customers it looks like everyone will do the same.

[abzmike]

Condi said:

Yeti97 said:

RacerMike said:

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently.

Bit of a nightmare really. Praying at least one provider keeps their roaming! Otherwise will be sucking up that £5 day cost.

If 3 are not going to, who else would? It was their USP years before the EU banned it, so unless anyone else sees that as an opportunity to take their customers it looks like everyone will do the same.

Sorry, what did the EU ban? Charging for roaming, bloody good thing it was too, particulary if a regular traveller.

[Condi]

abzmike said:

Sorry, what did the EU ban? Charging for roaming, bloody good thing it was too, particulary if a regular traveller.

..... Yes, the EU banned roaming charges...... As per the subject of the thread.

[RacerMike]

camel_landy said:

Yeti97 said:

RacerMike said:

US is a particular pain for me as my sister and her family have literally just moved to Philadelphia this year, hence I'll probably going there at least once a year now if not more frequently.

Bit of a nightmare really. Praying at least one provider keeps their roaming! Otherwise will be sucking up that £5 day cost.

The other PITA is that they also use different LTE frequency bands out there, so you might want to check compatibility.

Depending on how often you go, it might be easier to simply get a US spec phone and a local PAYG SIM.

M

One of the networks there (can’t remember which one but might be Sprint) uses the same LTE band as Europe so roaming European iPhones just connect to that one. I know this as I bought an iPhone 7 in NYC when it was launched and spent about 2hrs trying to work out which providers handset would work in the U.K.!

[Griffith4ever]

camel_landy said:

Depending on how often you go, it might be easier to simply get a US spec phone and a local PAYG SIM.

M

... known as a "burner" :-)

I guess (being serious) I'll end up going back to buying sim cards when travelling. I already do in non-Three covered countries, like Cambodia, and Thailand.

It's quite odd really - Three claim they can't continue as is as EU billing is not transparent enough so they can't calculate what it'll cost them when we roam. Thing is, we are talking about all the non EU countries - USA, NZ, etc. That can't have changed because "brexit".

I have gone to the lengths of fitting a signal booster so Three works at home. The moment I can't enjoy their roaming benefits I'm off. I can't be alone - their coverage is weak, and their "customer service" is the worst of all indian call centre frustrationathons you can possibly experience.

They are deleting their USP.

[loudlashadjuster]

Griffith4ever said:

It's quite odd really - Three claim they can't continue as is as EU billing is not transparent enough so they can't calculate what it'll cost them when we roam. Thing is, we are talking about all the non EU countries - USA, NZ, etc. That can't have changed because "brexit".

That’s nonsense. The clearing on roaming charges is provided by third parties who manage it on behalf of the operators for all territories and networks.

Brexit changes nothing here, apart from the usually overlay of complexity and, probably, some marginal cost increases.

It’s not like EU operators simply threw away all their roaming agreements and forgot about collecting data on who uses what, where. It’s all still recorded and accounted for, they just don’t bill the end users for it.

Nothing that makes it untenable, this is simply gouging.

[tangerine_sedge]

loudlashadjuster said:

Brexit changes nothing here, apart from the usually overlay of complexity and, probably, some marginal cost increases.

Brexit certainly does change stuff, hence why the price increases. The actual underlying costs haven't changed, but the EU networks like good capitalistic corporates are gouging away the UK networks customers. You can bet your bottom dollar that the UK operators are gouging the roaming foreign users too. Double G&T's all round - huzzah!

[loudlashadjuster]

tangerine_sedge said:

loudlashadjuster said:

Brexit changes nothing here, apart from the usually overlay of complexity and, probably, some marginal cost increases.

Brexit certainly does change stuff, hence why the price increases. The actual underlying costs haven't changed, but the EU networks like good capitalistic corporates are gouging away the UK networks customers. You can bet your bottom dollar that the UK operators are gouging the roaming foreign users too. Double G&T's all round - huzzah!

But the roaming agreements are multi-year and involve at least three parties per territory/network pair, and only a few of them will have been subject to any renegotiation. There are no additional costs for operators or clearing houses because of Brexit itself, those roaming charges are still accounted for and paid by the network operators to each other, it's just that UK networks are no longer bound by the EU directive so are choosing to pass those charges (and a healthy markup, of course) to their customers. Because they can.

And between work and family mobiles, I use four networks in Luxembourg and Germany, and none of them have started to charge for roaming to the UK. None of the other networks in Spain, Italy and Poland I checked this morning have either. Curious.

[Glade]

PF62 said:

Condi said:

Suspect that this will not be a very popular move, especially when other operators are (at the moment) not doing the same.

They are!

Vodafone were the first to charge for EU roaming when they introduced their 'Basics' plans last year that don't include EU roaming, and if you wanted EU roaming then you have to sign up for one of the significantly more expensive standard plans.

I didn't realise this, am in france and spent an hour on webchat with Vodafone customer services to figure out why I had no data... then they realised that when I changed my contract it was to a Vodafone basics package!

I was so happy with my mega cheap sim only deal until this point!

[PF62]

Glade said:

PF62 said:

Condi said:

Suspect that this will not be a very popular move, especially when other operators are (at the moment) not doing the same.

They are!

Vodafone were the first to charge for EU roaming when they introduced their 'Basics' plans last year that don't include EU roaming, and if you wanted EU roaming then you have to sign up for one of the significantly more expensive standard plans.

I didn't realise this, am in france and spent an hour on webchat with Vodafone customer services to figure out why I had no data... then they realised that when I changed my contract it was to a Vodafone basics package!

I was so happy with my mega cheap sim only deal until this point!

Although on the upside at least Vodafone didn't simply connect the data instead of connecting and then charging you thousands in roaming fees.

Ah, those wonderous days back to before 2015 when the evil EU stepped in to make roaming free and when people used to write to the newspapers complaining they had run up enormous bills because they didn't realise their phone wasn't connected to WiFI but was roaming and using data.

[Condi]

loudlashadjuster said:

There are no additional costs for operators or clearing houses because of Brexit itself,.... it's just that UK networks are no longer bound by the EU directive so are choosing to pass those charges (and a healthy markup, of course) to their customers. Because they can.

But if we were still part of the EU what they are doing would be illegal, so they only have the opportunity to charge us more because of Brexit. It is impossible to separate the 2.

[loudlashadjuster]

Condi said:

But if we were still part of the EU what they are doing would be illegal, so they only have the opportunity to charge us more because of Brexit. It is impossible to separate the 2.

Yes, but there are no additional direct costs because we left, just the opportunity to do so. Sunlit uplands and all that.