The Future of Roaming Charges

Going abroad in Europe, you’d never expect to pay more for access to mobile data for texts and online services, right?

Well it may be that the UK’s mobile network providers might reintroduce roaming charges to anyone going abroad within Europe, so additional charges may begin to apply by January next year!

“What Caused This?”

Following the UK’s Brexit trade deal with the EU last year, roaming charges were one of the few trades that were not ruled out. Instead, the deal offered that the UK and the EU should encourage services to promote “transparent and reasonable rates” for customers.

For a time, many network providers had said that they had no plans to bring back roaming charges. However, the BT-owned network provider EE has broken the ice by announcing the sudden change in plans being prepared for next year.

“What Will I Be Charged?”

For now, EE is planning to charge £2 daily whenever a customer uses their mobile data around 47 European countries. This is applied to new customers who join EE or to pre-existing customers that have upgraded their contract by 7th July this year.

Other providers such as Vodafone, Three and O2 are still hesitant to reintroduce roaming charges, but still have “fair use limits” that only charge customers an extra sum once their data limit is exceeded:

• For Vodafone, it’s £3.13 per GB used after their 25GB data limit
• For O2, it’s £3.50 per GB used after their 25GB data limit
• For Three, it’s £3 per GB used after their 20GB data limit

Three does plan to change their data limit from 20GB to 12GB by July this year.

So What Comes Next?

This makes us wonder; if EE is willing to reapply roaming charges, will other network providers follow that path as well?

O2 are already implementing fair use limits for anyone to use around Europe as a roaming limit by August this year, so it may be likely that other network providers will join in too. Fair use limits may be used as a better alternative for roaming charges.

If you’re a local business and unsure how these changes will affect you, why not use TMAC Wireless Solutions? They can help provide a hassle-free solution for your peace of mind.