MSE News: Beware mobile roaming charges in non-EU European countries

NFH

DunPin wrote: »

I'll get a AT&T/T-Mobile sim.

Since only recently, you might instead want to consider Lycamobile US which charges:

• $0.02 per minute for calls (incoming or outgoing)
• $0.04 per SMS
• $0.06 per megabyte

Unless you use more than 50MB or 150 minutes in one day, then it's cheaper than paying $3 per day to T-Mobile for unlimited usage.

DunPin

NFH wrote: »

Since only recently, you might instead want to consider Lycamobile US which charges:

• $0.02 per minute for calls (incoming or outgoing)
• $0.04 per SMS
• $0.06 per megabyte

Unless you use more than 50MB or 150 minutes in one day, then it's cheaper than paying $3 per day to T-Mobile for unlimited usage.

When I am out there I'll be using data like no tomorrow for FB, Apple Maps and various news so it could possibly go above 50MB in a day

I'll check them both out and compare however, if I were to go T-Mobile (if I can find the nano sim online, prepaid doesn't show it as available to purchase), how would I pick the $3/day plan and recharge from UK before leaving for the US?

antteepee

I went to Australia for 6 weeks & did not know I had roaming turned on, (poor old soul, I didn't know about this sort of stuff) so I came back to a bill for £98 from Vodafone!! All for not using the phone. I should have switched it off altogether. Anyway, Vodafone wont budge so they will be losing a valuable customer of 16 years. If I had been told about this when I went to their shop to tell them I was going there I could have done something about it beforehand. Oh well, you live & learn the hard way. Bye bye Vodafone, I'm sure someone wants me! Antteepee

Tropez

antteepee wrote: »

I went to Australia for 6 weeks & did not know I had roaming turned on, (poor old soul, I didn't know about this sort of stuff) so I came back to a bill for £98 from Vodafone!! All for not using the phone. I should have switched it off altogether. Anyway, Vodafone wont budge so they will be losing a valuable customer of 16 years. If I had been told about this when I went to their shop to tell them I was going there I could have done something about it beforehand. Oh well, you live & learn the hard way. Bye bye Vodafone, I'm sure someone wants me! Antteepee

Can you blame Vodafone though?

You say you didn't use the phone, so I'm guessing it's data roaming charges. Basically, you have told them that you took your phone abroad, left it on, kept data enabled and kept it charged despite not using it and that you didn't know that roaming was on.

It doesn't sound that plausible and I bet Vodafone and every other network hear hundreds of such stories, usually from people trying to pull a fast one on them.

DaveAA

I think this bears repeating...

NFH wrote: »

I am an Orange UK customer and when I spent 4 days in Belarus with my iPhone last year, I got a local SIM card from MTS . I had a reasonable number of outgoing and incoming calls and text messages and also used a reasonable amount of data. Despite being prepaid, MTS gave me a fully itemised bill, which listed all the data I used as well as every outgoing and incoming call and text. The total bill over 4 days cost me £1.56. I imported the bill into Excel and calculated how much the same usage would have cost using an Orange UK SIM card. It would have been a whopping £1,237.38. I urge everyone to use local SIM cards, particularly when travelling outside the EEA.

NFH wrote: »

I believe that networks should be forced to quote data roaming charges per gigabyte in order to highlight the magnitude of the charges. Orange's non-EEA data roaming charge is £8,000/GB vs £10/GB in the UK. Quoting data prices per megabyte is akin to quoting voice calls as a charge for one second instead of for one minute; it disguises the high charge.

Networks should be called to account for these charges.

Don't forget that foreign visitors coming to the UK are likely also being ripped off in a similar manner.

NFH

DaveAA wrote: »

Don't forget that foreign visitors coming to the UK are likely also being ripped off in a similar manner.

Yes, and visitors from outside the EU VAT area roaming in the UK additionally have to pay UK VAT, whereas they don't have to pay local VAT when roaming in other EU countries. The UK opted to do this under Article 9(3)(a) of Council Directive 77/388 ("the Sixth VAT Directive"). The upside is that UK residents roaming outside the EU VAT area are not subject to UK VAT. Visitors roaming in the UK from within the EU VAT area are charged VAT by their own country, but these visitors are subject to price caps under Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 anyway.

diamonds

Exactly why I took a EE contract, £5 roaming as needed month to month, Xperia SP £ 21....even Orange would not match it so off to EE I went. 500MB does me for the handset, bought a Mifi device for tablet on the move.

Plus side, mobile battery lasts ALL day not using it as a modem/browser.


If you NEED to stay in touch with UK family/work whilst even on your holiday once a year the EE plans are the biz, of course this is to stop people leaving their roaming when the EU enforcement of choosing a roaming partner whilst abroad loses the telco out, for the countries EE cover and the choice of provider elsewhere a EE contract is a great deal.


A clever move EE, Orange seems to be the cash cow of EE, T-Mobile unlimited data loses money and EE seems to fit inbetween both brands.


Kept my old contract with Orange on a BB for work email, few mins a month and UMA to forward my EE at home as diabolical signal from all networks at home, no I'm not using a Voda/3 Suresignal as I should be assured a signal at my home address anyway, use your own network or discount me for providing home coverage....

NFH

diamonds wrote: »

Exactly why I took a EE contract, £5 roaming as needed month to month

Doesn't this £5/month only cover calls and texts? When I'm abroad, 95% of my usage is data, which I understand is excluded from this deal. Given that 4G is all about data, it's rather an odd add-on.

diamonds

Mifi I find the best deals are usually two different priceplans for data and voice, 4G data is a rip off...no 500MB does me fine, mifi for the heavy stuff with tablet, phone I usually use for travel planning/times and the auto updating of a few apps. Abroad I will throw a local sim in my Xperia SP (and mifi if needed) EE sim will go in the Tesco £5 Samsung E1200 - it only does calls and texts.

EE state 3G/4G but in the terms its 2G aswell.

4G data roaming is cheaper but still VERY expensive even with the roaming bundle applied the data roaming bundles, wow... Local sim everytime!


Data roaming bundle costs (ONLY) with inclusive or £5 mins/txt roam bundle for the unEducatEd:
24 hours/2MB £0.50 or 24 hours/100MB £2.00
7 days/250MB £12.50
30 days/1GB £25.00

If you dont have a inclusive roaming plan or the £5 bundle applied for the month the roaming data rates are not worth a mention unless I wanna kill a large % of MSE off with heart attacks :eek:

Even at them^ better rates any good MSE'er will download Opera Mini or Opera Mobile to their phone to compress the data sent and recieved

NFH

diamonds wrote: »

Abroad I will throw a local sim in my Xperia SP (and mifi if needed) EE sim will go in the Tesco £5 Samsung E1200 - it only does calls and texts.

Carrying around a second device is hardly practical just to get a data connection, particularly in warmer climes when one has fewer pockets. This might work for women with handbags but not for most men.