O2 made the controversial announcement that it will be bringing back roaming charges for all customers who head to Europe this summer. The changes come into effect from August, so anyone lucky enough to get on a plane and head to a beach this August will be affected by the decision.
Unsurprisingly, the decision to resurrect EU roaming charges now that post-Brexit rules allow networks to do so has clearly not pleased those who subscribe to O2. Twitter is full of users venting their anger at the decision, with one branding it “ridiculous”. However, the update to the terms and conditions are not as bad as many might suspect.
O2 says that customers will only see money being added to their bill if they exceed an allowance of 25GB. Once that limit is eaten up, a charge of £3.50 per extra 1GB will then be added to bills.
Unless you spend hours streaming content, 25GB is quite a lot of data and it’s likely that most customers won’t get anywhere near that when abroad meaning they won’t be charged.
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As O2 explained in a statement to TechRadar Pro: “Less than 1% of our Pay Monthly customers reach anywhere near 25GB during occasional travel to Europe. If a customer’s UK monthly data allowance is over 25GB, from August 2 they will have a Roaming Limit of 25GB in our Europe Zone.
“This means they can use up to 25GB of their allowance at no extra cost – we’ll text them if they get close to the limit, and again if they reach it. A customer can still use data if they reach our Roaming Limit, but will be charged £3.50/GB.”
For reference, streaming an hour of Netflix or 10 hours of music on Spotify uses around 1GB of data. Most people download content before they travel or use hotel Wi-Fi to stay connected so chewing through so much mobile data could be rare.
Of course, charges are never welcome and some consumers who consume lots of data are going to be hit by much, much bigger bills. But, if you compare O2’s new rules with what EE has just announced things really don’t look that bad at all.
Anyone joining EE or signing up for a new deal after July 7 will be hit by a £2 per day charge if they want to use their UK allowance in Europe.
That means a two week holiday in Spain could end up costing each family member £28. Ouch!
Speaking about the changes an EE spokesperson said, “From January next year, EE will introduce a new flat fee of £2 a day for customers wishing to roam across 47 European destinations (with the exception of ROI which is included in domestic plans), allowing them to use their plan’s full data, minutes and texts allowance. This will apply only to new and upgrading customers signing up to EE from the 7th July 2021 and will support investment into our UK based customer service and leading UK network.
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