Mobile operator O2 UK has admitted that they are throttling internet data traffic on their 3G (Mobile Broadband) connections for pay monthly contract customers who go roaming around the European Union. Some operators also struggled to deliver a good 4G connection while abroad.
By now most people will be aware that the EU’s new “Roam like at Home” regulations came into force on 15th June 2017 (here), which means that anybody choosing to use their Mobile (SIM) to make calls, text or use data while roaming around the EU should be able to do so for the same price as they pay their UK operator (i.e. no extra roaming charges, albeit with a few limits on data use).
O2’s related Europe Zone bolt-on promises that “if you’re travelling within our Europe Zone, your minutes, data and texts will work just as they do at home,” except several customers have now shown that this isn’t entirely true (O2 Forum). One customer (Darren) decided to demonstrate this by conducting a series of tests across several mobile operators while roaming in Ireland (Dublin) and here’s a sample (spot the pattern).
1st Test Manchester Airport Terminal 3 (7AM)
O2 Contract 4G Signal 8.52Mbps Down, 7.19Mbps Up
Three Contact 3G Signal Data did not work for 2 Hours being in airport
Vodafone 4G Signal 15.96Mbps Down, 10.44Mbps up
BT Mobile 4G Signal 4.81Mbps Down, 8.54Mbps up
2nd Test Dublin Airport Terminal 1 (9AM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.25Mbps Down, 0.30Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 7.46Mbps Down, 1.07Mbps Up
Vodafone 3G 6.07Mbps Down, 3.93Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 3.16Mbps Down, 1.64 Up
3rd Test Centre of Dublin O’Connell Street (10.30AM)
O2 Contract 3G Only 0.49Mbps Down, 0.58Mbps Up
O2 PAYG 3G Only 1.84Mbps Down, 0.44Mbps Up
Three 3G Only 7.46Mbps Down, 1.07Mbps Up
Vodafone 4G 26.30Mbps Down, 11.01Mbps Up
Tesco PAYG 3G Only 2.09Mbps Down, 1.12Mbps Up
BT Mobile 3G 4.59Mbps Down, 1.21Mbps Up
Asda Mobile 3G 3.89Mbps Down, 0.46Mbps Up
Various other tests were also conducted and generally Vodafone came out best, at least for roaming around in Dublin where they often secured a 4G signal and usually delivered the best speeds. However the same could not be said for O2’s Contract SIM, which only ever made use of 3G and usually delivered download speeds that were pretty consistently below 0.6Mbps in nearly every location.
According to Darren, “O2 Contract is throttled beyond [belief]. You could see the phone trying its hardest and on many occasions starting the speed test I was getting 10+ Mbps, however throttling kicked in and it went straight to 0.50 mostly. I’m appalled that it’s still throttled badly and its shocking that 4G is still not available. What I can tell you though is that 4G is trying to Activate on O2, but it forces your phone back to 3G.” O2 has now confirmed to The Register that limits do apply, but not for much longer.
A Spokesperson for O2 said:
“We have put temporary measures in place to protect the service experience for customers roaming in the EU. We are working to have these controls removed within the coming weeks.”
The EU’s related regulations require that “the same tariff conditions apply for the use of mobile services while roaming abroad in the Union and at home” (here), although clearly O2 have not been keeping to the spirit of this. In fairness we can’t completely blame UK mobile operators for the performance of networks in other countries, although in this case O2 can exert control to restrict service speeds for roaming customers.
As usual there probably wouldn’t have been such a fuss about this had the operator mentioned such caveats when they adopted the policy, which of course they didn’t. At the same time the testing that has been conducted is rather limited and it would be good to see how different operators fair around other EU countries, but that would require professional testing as most people don’t carry multiple SIMs or visit lots of countries in a short space of time.
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I am currently in Portugal and the 3G roaming is so slow. It has never been that great here but this year it is the worst I have every seen it.
Noticed this more and more this past year.
I’ll be ditching O2 next year when my contract is up.
O2 deserve to lose customers for such behavior.
Seems for data its best to get a native SIM.
It’s not just O2.
Vodafone were doing the same in Croatia for me last week. The internet was completely unusable, despite being “LTE”. I had to rely on WiFi.
I was in Tenerife recently, roaming on O2. The 3G was atrocious, and 4G was not available even though it was available on their partner network. I did multiple speed tests from various locations and it was obvious that they were throttling to 330K down 300k up.
I tried to complain when I was in Tenerife by calling O2, they denied any throttling and blamed the local carrier. When I returned to the UK I raised a complaint and again was told on multiple occasions that there was no throttling and again blamed ‘Moviestar’ their Spanish partner.
I was only after the truth, but I was blatantly lied to. I am glad they have now addmited admitted the truth.
Ironic given Movistar is a Telefónica company…yes, the same parent company as O2.
Plusnet mobile in Tenerife was 4G 24Meg down and 12Meg up (as plusnet use EE network)
I noticed the same behavior while on vacation in France last month, I naturally thought the host network is the culprit, I had 2 phones with me, one on O2 and the other on 3, each connected to a different host network in France, data on 3 was fine, however on O2 felt more like a 2.x G connection.
Three (or their international partners) absolutely slow down data use on their Feel at Home stuff in the USA.
Usable but not enjoyable.
HTTPS appears to be throttled where http does not.
Google -HTTPS- speed test:
0.08 Mbps download
0.10 Mbps upload
329 ms ping
speedof.me -HTTP- test:
3.33 Mbps down
0.23 Mbps upload
326 ms ping
493 ms jitter
Browsing is generally sluggish and images appear / draw down the screen slowly like in the “old days”.
Still glad I’ve got connectivity for no extra cost 🙂
They certainly used to do this (when USA was first added) but the last two times I have been (June 2016 and April 2017) speeds have been in the double figures for both upload and download. That was on both T-Mobile and ATT.
Comparing to my Vodafone SIM paying for the WorldTraveller, speeds were no different.
Worth noting that even in Australia they were good too. No difference based on the host network or Vodafone, Optus or Telstra.
TalkMobile required voice and data be separately authorised in France 3 weeks ago before full roaming permitted. To be fair, when this was done I experienced no slowdown.