Inclusive EU Roaming comparison

ruflonger

Inclusive EU Roaming

Edited - Shared link to spreadsheet.

Researching mainly EU roaming for my own purposes it was not always clear and sometimes confusing as to which countries were covered by mobile operator/MNVO..

Unable to find a clear comparison this table has been produced, based on my own investigation.

The table focuses mainly on European roaming by mobile operator but does also include countries outside the EU where it has been specified via their website. The cost of the plans investigated ranged from around £4.00 to £15.00,and were mainly rolling monthly contracts not the 12 or 24 month plans and varied in their data allowances.

Key

Network operators - The main providers (EE, O2, Three\Vodafone)

MNVO - Mobile companies that piggy back off the main providers

Boxes in green and have a 1 (one) in them indicate the country is included in the companies roaming package.

Total destinations - total number of destinations covered. .

Note.

The destinations listed are the destination provided on the relevant company websites. For example Spusu who are an MNVO using EE do not cover the Isle of Man, Jersey or Guernsey but EE do so it is worth checking as you could incur roaming charges.

There may be more expensive, or longer plans that include roaming but they have not been covered by me in this table.

PHK

I am sorry to say that i spotted a mistake straight away.

Some EE tariffs include EU roaming and the top tariffs (All-Rounder and Full works) include ROW1 roaming as well.

ruflonger

You are correct EE do advertise that some more expensive plans to include roaming however, during my investigation I could not find the list of what countries are included in the roaming so could not include them in the list. If you search using the EE 'get ready to roam' tool it only provides detail of the cost to roam is a specific country.

Personally I was looking for lower cost sim and was surprised by the apparent randomness of the counties included. I hope the guide may provide useful as almost got caught out when I discovered the Isle of Man was not included in my plan

PHK

See the bottom of the page “Roaming with EE” for the EU and ROW Zone 1

https://ee.co.uk/roamingrefresh

Famau

Well done I have to say - quite a labour, and useful too !

Famau

Oops - Lebara does Italy - should be green (?) I wondered if worth adding a key??

ruflonger

I appreciate the feedback. This started as personal list as I am looking into a new sim only contract and was planning a few trips in Europe and wanted to identify what countries were included in the roaming offering and unfortunately identified an issue when researching sim only contracts.

The main UK network operators EE, Vodafone\Three, O2 may provide ‘free’ roaming but at a premium price. The Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MNVO) may provide ‘free’ roaming within their offerings.

When you then drill down into which countries the roaming covers or the way the list is constructed it becomes a minefield.

Examples include:

Portugal is covered by approx. 23 operators but only approx. 12 operators cover Madeira or 11 operators cover the Azores which are autonomous regions of Portugal

Spain is covered by approx. 23 operators but only approx. 8 operators cover Balearic Islands or 15 operators cover the Canary Islands which are autonomous regions of Spain

Honest Mobile only offer 5 days of free EU roaming with Classic SIM before it starts charging £2/day from day 6 onwards, however their data only smart sim has unlimited global roaming in 180+ countries on ‘essential apps’

redux

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82031233#Comment_82031233

I would not automatically assume that the offshore French Portuguese and Spanish territories are specifically excluded if there is no mention; they could be counted as understood to be inclusive.

But it's true I don't actually know. (And for now I don't need to.)

ruflonger

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82031415#Comment_82031415

That's part of the problem. It seems the separation maybe used to artificially increase the number of countries covered