O2, Vodafone and Three UK Respond to EU Roaming Concerns

The controversial decision today by UK mobile operator EE to reintroduce EU roaming charges for new and upgrading customers (here) has resulted in some concern that other operators would follow suit. In response, we asked O2, Vodafone and Three UK to clarify whether they’re planning to do something similar.

First up we have Three UK, which at the end of last year said they planned to “retain” roaming at no extra cost “regardless of Brexit negotiations.” The good news is that Three UK told ISPreview.co.uk they “will not be implementing a roaming fee,” but sadly they do intend to reduce the flexibility on their fair usage cap.

A Three UK spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk: “Following a review of our fair use policy, we are making some changes to our Go Roam policy in the EU to bring it in line with our Go Roam Around the World fair use policy. This means from July 1 our fair use limit for data while in the EU will reduce from 20GB per month to 12GB.”

Three claims their “new fair use limit is still more than enough for holidaymakers to use their phone like they would if they were in the UK,” although there’s no doubt that going from 20GB to 12GB will restrict mobile broadband usage for some customers. “There is no change to our surcharge, so data usage over 12GB (up to the customer’s allowance), will remain subject to a small fee of 0.3p per MB,” added the operator.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Vodafone UK said, “We have no current plans to change our approach to roaming in the EU.” Likewise, a spokesperson for O2, said, “I can confirm we have no plans to reintroduce roaming charges.” However, O2 did yesterday unveil a stricter fair usage cap on EU data roaming, but that largely just brought them more into line with other operators (here).

On the surface this sounds positive, although we tend to take phrases like “no plans” with a pinch of highly ambiguous salt, as plans can and often do change, particularly in the telecoms industry. If we had a pound for every time a broadband ISP or mobile operator had said they had “no plans” for something, only to change course a few months later.. etc.