Mobile roaming in Europe

[swill453]

My phone provider Talkmobile has recently announced free roaming in Europe i.e. bundled texts, minutes and data in the contract can be used in 41 other countries* without further charge https://talkmobile.co.uk/roaming-in-europe

Not bad for my £7.50 per month 2GB contract.

I guess it remains to be seen what the performance is like on foreign networks, I'll be trying it in France in a couple of weeks time.

* - seems to not include Switzerland, Andorra, Isle of Man and a few others.

Scott.

[GrandOiseau]

Roaming charges are ending in Europe

[swill453]

Roaming charges are ending in Europe

Yes I had read about that, but suspected the providers would find a way of not simply allowing bundles to be used abroad. Pleased to see I was wrong.

Scott.

[JMN2]

Roaming charges are ending in Europe

Yes I had read about that, but suspected the providers would find a way of not simply allowing bundles to be used abroad. Pleased to see I was wrong.

Scott.

I think in some EU countries there are special allowances for some companies to charge more or extra, in cases when domestic users abroad are more plentiful than foreign users visiting or in that country. In some EU countries the data roaming charges are dirt cheap and have a lot more people going abroad than have foreigners coming in. So they may be able to charge more. Sorry I can't explain this with proper terminology.

[woolly]

I've been using Three for a while now for exactly that reason - they have something called "Feel at Home" which means you use your text, phone and data allowance abroad with no extra charge. Works all over the world as well as Europe (not everywhere, obviously, but in quite a few more popular destinations).

[GrandOiseau]

Warning from Which:

Exceeding allowances would still be chargeable while roaming territories varied between companies.

Different providers included different countries in their roaming territories, such as the Channel Islands and Switzerland.

Exceeding agreed minutes, texts and data would still be charged in the EU as it would in the UK, with providers charging different rates, it added.

[chas49]

In addition to the warnings on exceeding your bundles, there is provision for an additional fair usage cap on data allowances. So whilst you may have a large allowance of data - you may not be allowed to use ALL of it abroad.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/co ... dex_en.htm

[swill453]

Moneysavingexpert has an article about this http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/t ... ed-to-know

Point 4 says: "Calls to any EU number will come from your UK allowance, not just calls back to the UK."

Now my provider (Talkmobile) doesn't say this in their web page. Can anyone verify if this is part of the new rule?

i.e. I'm roaming in France and make a call to, say, a French landline.

Scott.

[StepOne]

Talkmobile runs on Vodafone I think. Below is an some detail on how Vodafone is handling the new regulations. From what I can see all the networks are treating 'in zone' calls the same - i.e. they come off your UK bundle and will be charged at UK rates if you go over bundle. And any 'out-of-zone' calls made in Europe will be charged as though you are in the UK making an international call. N.B. Some of the networks have taken this opportunity to increase rates for International calls!

Guide to Roaming for:
Business Plus, Business Advance, Business Freedom, Red Sharer or Business Sharer

UK (home) network charges apply when:
• Customers make a call whilst in the UK or within Europe Zone 1
• Customers make a call from anywhere in Europe 1 back to the UK

International charges apply when:
• Customers make a call from your UK home network to anywhere in Europe Zone 1 or Europe Zone 2
• Customers make a call from their UK home network to anywhere in Vodafone's Rest of World Zones
• Customers make a call anywhere in the network's Europe Zone 1 to Europe Zone 2 and anywhere in their Rest of World Zones

Roaming charges apply when:
• Customers make calls from anywhere in their Rest of World Zones back to anywhere in the UK or Europe Zones (UK Home Network Zone, Europe
Zone 1 or Europe Zone 2)
• Customers make calls within any of the Rest of World Zone
• Customers make calls from anywhere in their Europe Zone 2 to anywhere in the UK, Europe Zone 1, and their Rest of World Zones

[swill453]

Talkmobile runs on Vodafone I think. Below is an some detail on how Vodafone is handling the new regulations. From what I can see all the networks are treating 'in zone' calls the same - i.e. they come off your UK bundle and will be charged at UK rates if you go over bundle. And any 'out-of-zone' calls made in Europe will be charged as though you are in the UK making an international call. N.B. Some of the networks have taken this opportunity to increase rates for International calls!

Guide to Roaming for:
Business Plus, Business Advance, Business Freedom, Red Sharer or Business Sharer

UK (home) network charges apply when:
• Customers make a call whilst in the UK or within Europe Zone 1
• Customers make a call from anywhere in Europe 1 back to the UK

International charges apply when:
• Customers make a call from your UK home network to anywhere in Europe Zone 1 or Europe Zone 2
• Customers make a call from their UK home network to anywhere in Vodafone's Rest of World Zones
• Customers make a call anywhere in the network's Europe Zone 1 to Europe Zone 2 and anywhere in their Rest of World Zones

Roaming charges apply when:
• Customers make calls from anywhere in their Rest of World Zones back to anywhere in the UK or Europe Zones (UK Home Network Zone, Europe
Zone 1 or Europe Zone 2)
• Customers make calls within any of the Rest of World Zone
• Customers make calls from anywhere in their Europe Zone 2 to anywhere in the UK, Europe Zone 1, and their Rest of World Zones

I have to say that's ambiguous as well. Making a call from UK home network to Europe Zone 1 is covered by both point 1 of the first section and point 1 of the second section. In fact point 1 of the first section is nonsensical or has a clause missing (call to where?).

Scott.

[swill453]

i.e. I'm roaming in France and make a call to, say, a French landline.

I've just had a webchat with Talkmobile and have been assured that the above scenario definitely would be included in my bundled minutes from tomorrow, despite it not being made clear on their web site.

I have of course saved the transcript of the chat in case of problems.

Scott.

[StepOne]

The first point is supposed to refer to calls within country. i.e. UK to UK or France to France.

The daft part is that the regulations only apply to Roaming calls - i.e. those where you are outside your home country. So for UK users, a call from France to UK is now charged at UK rates (and included in your UK bundle if you have one), whereas a call from UK to France is classed as 'International' and is not covered by the regulations. So you should check the rates you are now paying on International calls, as in some cases these have gone up considerably. e.g. on O2 a call from UK to Europe has gone from 10p a minute to 150p a minute including VAT.

StepOne

[swill453]

The daft part is that the regulations only apply to Roaming calls - i.e. those where you are outside your home country. So for UK users, a call from France to UK is now charged at UK rates (and included in your UK bundle if you have one), whereas a call from UK to France is classed as 'International' and is not covered by the regulations. So you should check the rates you are now paying on International calls, as in some cases these have gone up considerably. e.g. on O2 a call from UK to Europe has gone from 10p a minute to 150p a minute including VAT.

So you have the situation that to call from the UK to (say) France, it'll be much cheaper if you have a French (or other European) SIM than if you use a UK one.

Unintended consequences or what?

Scott.

[StepOne]

Yes, that's true, but the legislation also allows operators to apply a fair usage policy to prevent people doing that. Usage can be monitored and, for example, where roaming data usage far exceeds local, or where a SIM is only used for a few days here and there and always for roaming, then operators will be allowed to apply additional charges, after having warned the user.

StepOne.

[AF62]

Two things seemed to have slipped past almost all of the media in their publicising the changes. Under the new EU rules the mobile providers as well as being required to implement the changes mentioned above to 'roam like at home, are also permitted to do two other things.

One is to offer 'domestic only' tariffs with no roaming allowed at all, even at an additional cost.

The other is to offer tariffs where the buyer opts out of the EU rules and these packages can be cheaper (or more expensive) than the normal 'roam at home' tariffs. With these the provider can do what they want, so for example have the same as before 'roam at home' came in; a domestic bundle of minutes/sms/data and chargeable minutes/sms/data when roaming in the EU.

It will be interesting to see if any of the telecom companies in the UK do introduce such tariffs. I suspect Vodafone, O2, EE won't because they won't want the bad press and they want to sell a 'premium' product, but I would be surprised if one of the MVNOs didn't. And if any of the telecom companies do introduce 'opt out' tariffs what amount of miss-selling goes on.