Ooohh, don’t use it, it’s just been WhatsApp for me for years now.
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Good site for anyone planning to travel and use a local sim.
(I have used it myself, and can vouch for most of the information being up to date and accurate)
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I assume you’ve all seen the news about EE and O2 reintroducing roaming charges. The ones that Leavers told us weren’t going to happen and it was all “Project Fear”. I fully expect the red tops to be full of hysterical xenophobic drivel demanding we charge EU visitors 10 times the UK price, rather than reflect on the fact that this has been driven by other factors…
Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.
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O2 still have a 25GB FUP so not the same as EE. I don’t know why people are getting mad at O2, you still get to use data for free, unlike on EE.
Well actually it was the mobile networks that repeatedly said they weren’t going to reintroduce EU roaming charges. From the article:
EE, which is part of BT Group, previously said it had no plans to reintroduce roaming charges in Europe.
…
In January 2021, EE, O2, Three and Vodafone all stated they had no plans to reintroduce roaming charges, despite Brexit giving them the option to do so.
And from Bloomberg:
BT Group Plc will charge customers extra to use their mobile phones in the European Union, reversing course after saying repeatedly that a return of so-called roaming fees wasn’t on the cards after Britain’s exit from the bloc’s single market.
…
As recently as Thursday morning [9 hours ago!], EE’s customer service Twitter account was reassuring users it had no plans to bring back roaming charges.
It is a real shame that the Brexit trade deal didn’t include an agreement on maintaining free roaming in the EU though. I hope my network, Vodafone, keep to their word🤞 I worry that EE’s actions might set a costly precedent… although my plan includes Global Roaming Plus (81 destinations) so even if VF do remove it as a standard feature, hopefully I’ll be able to cling on to it.
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Vodafone have already removed Global Roaming Plus from their Unlimited Max Plans, it’s now only available on the really expensive Xtra plans, for new and upgrading customers.
If customers leave/new customers go somewhere else, then others won’t want to make the same mistake. Unless they all do and the customers can get fecked.
I was planning on leaving O2 for EE but if things stay as they are, I won’t now
Yes, I noticed that the other day. Fortunately I took out my contract during the short period in which it was included in the Unlimited Max plan, so I’m now rather reluctant to leave Vodafone when my contracted term ends… despite their customer service being total shite. I’m paying £21 per month (£30 full price, with £4 off per month special offer when I first contracted, plus an additional discount after I made a formal complaint about them removing London Underground WiFi with no notice), so it’s a pretty fantastic deal! It’s worth saying, though, that Roam Free (51 destinations incl. EU) is still currently included in all their SIMO pay monthly line up, so hopefully that doesn’t go the way of the dodo for new customers’ sake. Global Roaming Plus is about providing coverage outside EU destinations, and in addition to the standard Global Roaming offering.
I’m hoping the former is what the other networks will be thinking right now, and that they’ll retain roaming to give themselves a competitive advantage. But I’m equally concerned that they’ll all just think/calculate that the loss of custom isn’t worth them maintaining the feature. Or, as you say, they’ll just get together and all remove EU roaming - because it’ll save them money, none of the networks will offer it so no one will lose customers as a result, and they don’t give a flying fig about customer experience as long as the money keeps coming in. 
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Pretty sure this was off the back of the networks saying they’d work it out, rather than “haha project fear”; it was assurances. shame they didn’t make it legally binding.
Couldn’t even do so on the tube, Vodafone no longer has WiFi down there so outside of the Jubilee line you get zero signal and have to pay 3 pounds a day lol
For the record if you look at these destinations… they’re mostly European countries anyways, besides that you have real massive holiday destinations like… the British Virgin Islands and uhhh… some of the French Caribbean!
Sounds like an antitrust lawsuit in the making, but I definitely believe all of them could separately remove it (or maybe just limit it to countries where they have domestic network control like Three has a lot of EU market share and so does Vodafone and O2)
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You would hope Three and Vodafone would be more likely to retain it as a differentiating benefit and also because they have a number of sister networks worldwide which largely provide the service (so it probably isn’t costing them a huge amount).
Then again, as mentioned, O2 also have sister networks yet they have cut roaming anyway. I don’t think they have quite as many as Vodafone or Three though, so the calculation could have been that it wasn’t financially viable when it may be for other networks.
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It’s surprising the amount of countries Vodafone has under their belt, Australia, India, DR Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Turkey, Albania, Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and last but not least, the U.K.
They also have partnership arrangements in loads of other countries that they don’t directly operate in, meaning I see some real potential for them to be able to essentially cover the whole world with agreements, if they wanted to do so (maybe outside of sanctioned countries)
It’s not very easy to see what exactly these partnerships they have listed bring, actually. None of the companies seem to be using Vodafone Brand, maybe as Vodafone is the leading company in this regard (as in they’ve been around, the worlds most valuable company, put a lot of the foundation work in for our great mobile infrastructure) they offer some expertise in how to rollout networks etc
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O2’s new limits are far from harsh compared to the rest of the market though, since they simply bring their offering in line with Vodafone (and now higher than Three, since they cut theirs to 12GB). The papers, in true scaremongering fashion, were making out that the networks were all starting to pull the plug on roaming, with most headlines insinuating that both EE and O2 had discontinued their EU allowances. When in reality, fair usage caps have existed with the other networks throughout the time we were an EU member state (because the roam like at home regulations didn’t prohibit this). O2 could’ve easily implemented the 25GB cap while we were still in the EU, they’ve just chosen to hold out until now. EE’s actions are the only ones that would’ve been prohibited under EU law.
EE also happen to be the only one of the big four not to have any global sister networks, and have a track record of being rather roaming-unfriendly (you’re charged if someone calls you while you’re abroad and they’re diverted to voicemail, for example, which I don’t believe is the case with Voda, O2 or Three, plus their roaming add-on has always been rubbish in terms of the number of destinations included: something like 6, vs 70+ for the others). So this would all suggest that if any network was going to revoke EU roaming, EE would be the ones to do it. Hopefully the others are able to maintain it relatively easily.
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True and a good point.
I would imagine that it’s no coincidence that EE is also the most domestically-centred network, being owned by BT, so can’t rely on partner networks under the same company.
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