Ofcom Must Improve Protection Measures for EU Mobile Roaming
A new MSE report has called on Ofcom to improve consumer protection measures for mobile roaming when within the EU, which follows after the organisation’s research highlighted that consumers are still at risk of being caught out by unexpected roaming costs. But operators aren’t helping by adopting different definitions of a “day“.
Previously, consumers in the UK were largely free to use their domestic allowances (calls, texts and data), at no extra cost, when roaming around the EU. Take note that, even under the so-called “free” roaming rules, a Fair Usage Policy (FUP) with data caps will usually still apply in order to prevent abuse (i.e. not all EU countries offer unlimited data allowances on their domestic plans).
However, the recent EU-UK Trade Agreement didn’t guarantee free EU roaming for the future (EU policy), but it did contain “measures to encourage cooperation on the promotion of fair and transparent rates for international mobile roaming services in ways that can help promote the growth of trade among the Parties and enhance consumer welfare.”
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The UK Government also introduced some limited protection against the risk of future EU roaming BILL SHOCKs by adding a legislated cap of £45 +vat on roaming charges, including related warnings / SMS messages about roaming charges. At around the same time, most mobile operators were also pledging to retain free EU roaming post-Brexit, but many ended up doing a U-turn on that last year.
At present O2 (Virgin Mobile) are the only major mobile operator not to have reintroduced EU roaming charges (often costing £2 per day) and a few MVNO operators (iD Mobile, Giffgaff, Smarty etc.) are also still offering it. Despite this, many people expect the last holdouts to follow suit eventually. On top of that, the Government’s legislated protections became voluntary on 30th June 2022, but we’d be surprised if any operators scrapped them.
The new MSE report – ‘The Roaming Risk‘ – has examined the market and highlighted a number of problem areas, which they correctly feel that Ofcom should address.
Report Recommendations
MSE recommends that Ofcom, with any necessary support from DCMS, immediately re-instates the fallen roaming consumer protections, to ensure consumers are not relying on voluntary agreements for protections which were previously set out in law.
These protections are:
• Providers must send customers an SMS with pricing information when they start roaming.
• The £45 (excl VAT) per month cap on data roaming charges.
• Providers must make customers aware of how to avoid inadvertent roaming.
In doing so, Ofcom should make further changes to the rules so that:
• Ideally, all providers should use the same definition of a day – that a ‘day’ is a 24-hour period from first use. At a minimum, a day defined as ‘up to 11.59pm on the same day’ should be scrapped.
• All providers should be mandated to clearly explain how they define a ‘day’ in the arrival SMS that customers receive.
• Providers should alert customers at least an hour before the end of the ‘daily’ roaming period, so they know they will incur additional charges if they continue to use mobile services.
One key point above is with respect to how some operators define a “day” differently for roaming charges, and they don’t always express this directly to consumers as part of an SMS. For example, EE defines a “day” as being until 11.59pm UK time, which creates a problem when dealing with travel through different time zones and also means anybody paying the fee just before midnight might not realise that they don’t get 24 hours of use!
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By comparison, Vodafone and Three UK define a fairer “day” as 24 hours after first use (i.e. it lasts for 24 hours from when you purchase the EU roaming add-on). Naturally, the report calls on Ofcom to ensure that all operators define a day by this method, rather than any others.
Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: “I’ve no faith in mobile firms to self-regulate. When we left the EU, they promised not to reintroduce European roaming charges… yet most of the big networks have broken that promise. So our report calls on Ofcom to not trust voluntary promises – we need to reintroduce the formal, compulsory consumer protections.” It’s hard to disagree.
NOTE: Please try to keep your comments polite, on-topic (focused on UK mobile operators) and avoid straying into another ugly battle of the political trolls – from both sides of the fence. We may need to remove comments if there’s abuse between posters.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I realise some people wanted it but Brexit has been a mess. I can see no economic benefits only costs. For many less well off people from the Northern Wall areas, their holiday in the sun will prove to be a miserable experience once they’re away from the hotel’s free Wi-Fi (Although to be fair, European cities and towns were far more savvy hoovering up funds for public wifi). Thank god for O2 but I guess it will be only time before they go the same way as the other blood-suckers.
What’s so special about roaming charges for Brits travelling to European countries? Does any operator offer free roaming for travel to the rest of the world?
While the UK left the EU the traitorous political class still remains, preventing any real progress or benefits.
How about the billion euros a month we save, and that’s the net contribution, not the Boris gross figure?
Presumably, in the EU, those that don’t travel are forced to cross subsides those that do, hardly fair?
O2 roaming is Only on pay as you go if you are in the EU more than 31 day’s
If people go on holiday then surely they wouldn’t really plan to spend a good amount of their vacation using data on their mobile phone – especially while away from their hotel (assuming it has free wifi that is)? I know I didn’t when I’ve been to other countries in Europe, I take the time to look at the scenery, learn more about the culture, etc. However it appears that instead I usually see some people using this kind of news as an opportunity to blame and complain, often not targeted towards the mobile networks either.
P.S. I forgot to mention that there’s also the possibility of purchasing a local SIM card or eSIM to help keep costs down.
But nowadays you need the internet to discover where to find beautiful scenery, and then use a mapping app to get directions to this place. You might also want to take photos of the scenery, or facetime friends and family and share it with them. All of these things require data, and most of the time hotel wi-fi is not fast enough by todays standards – usually lower than the USO by my experience.
It’s disingenuous to suggest that because something isn’t a problem for you, that it isn’t a problem for other people. You don’t know that people visiting other countries don’t have important contacts back home that might need to reach them. Heck, maybe they’re traveling WITH people and want to stay in contact to coordinate!
hat about using navigation apps like Google maps? They require data. What about looking up restaurant reviews on tripadvisor while wandering around a local town deciding where to eat? How about translation services for interacting with folks who don’t speak your language?
Heck, what if I am sunning myself at the beach and just want to listen to some music?
Sure, you could do all of this before the advent of the mobile phone but to hand-wave it all away and suggest that this is a non-issue is to welcome what is essentially a regression within society.
Never mind that the real issue here isn’t that roaming is no longer free as it once was, but that the phone companies are being absolutely predatory with their policies. Use data at 23:59 and get charged £2, use it again at 00:00 and get charged another £2 – that’s not on, no matter how you want to defend it.
Regarding maps, I thought you could download maps to use offline? Sure it may not tell you about things like roadworks or accidents potentially, but it would save a lot of data usage.
As for music, I thought some services such as Spotify allowed you to download and play songs in an ‘offline mode’? Granted if you’re using YouTube then you would likely need to use an external service to get the YouTube video as a downloaded file.
Translation, at least with Android I believe you can download languages to use offline. I can’t say how good that particular feature is though as I’ve not honestly tried it. I assume Apple would have something similar too.
Regarding services such as TripAdvisor, that’s a reasonable one, although I could argue that I planned ahead before I started my holiday. If wifi is available at the hotel and is usable for simple browsing then I could look around before I leave the hotel.
I realise that some people don’t just go on holiday to enjoy the scenery and learn more about the country. I also realise some people may not want to resort to methods used before the mobile phone came along, but there are some ways around the issues that have been mentioned here so far.
“anybody paying the fee just before midnight might not realise that they don’t get 24 hours of use!”
I think that should say: anybody paying the fee just *after* midnight might not realise that they don’t get 24 hours of use!
(e.g. 00:30 in Paris is 23:30 in London)
EE/BT rip-off B..stars
How did the UK ever survive before “free” EU roaming? get a grip and get off your bloody phones and set a good example for the younger generation.
Mobile boarding passes would like a word.
The loss of free roaming is just the tip of the Brexit crapburg.
As others have stated in this comment section Brexit has only added barriers, costs and complexities. It has also created a customs and regulatory barrier in the Irish Sea and severely damaged the bonds between the nations of the UK, if not broken them entirely.
Get a grip of the pee poor reality you and your fellow ‘Brexiteers’ have inflicted upon the UK and everyone within it.
Yeah, let’s all be luddites!
Who needs email, satellite navigation and all that new-fangled foreign rubbish! /s
These articles really seem to bring out the boomer gammon generation of this sites userbase.
Equally it unfortunately also seems to bring out those who feel the need to use words like “gammon” or “crapburg” in an attempt to try and reinforce their opinions, instead of bringing a constructive and fairly civilised discourse despite the differences of opinions. All this does is encourage further division and tends to make for a negative discourse.
By having expensive data packs per day that’s how, for example as a Three customer I remember frequent trips to a EU country not covered by the Three Feel at Home plan and having to pay for expensive data packs for 24hrs multiple times that week just so I could use data so when the EU came to a agreement that the cost of using my phone would cost the same anywhere in Europe as it would in the UK, I found that to be highly desirable and useful.
Sadly the UK Govt was shortsighted not to ensure that the EU-UK Trade Agreement did guarantee free EU roaming for the future as it isn’t just a benefit for UK citizens to use in the EU but also it’s a benefit for EU citizens to use in the UK such as business people, school kids on exchange trips etc
By not ensuring the above agreement kept the free EU roaming in place, this country shot itself in the foot by handicapping itself.
As to the operators saying they need to reintroduce roaming charges, I don’t believe they need to because they managed okay with the free roaming in the EU so the only reason I can see the charges being brought back is simply in the name of profits and not because they have to.
I’m with EE and EU roaming still free as contract not renewed/upgraded since before announcement, 7th April 2021. Dont think a lot of people realise this. Worth checking at https://ee.co.uk/help/help-new/roaming-costs or from My EE. I’m not planning to upgrade until I’m forced!
If you join EE before 7 July 2021 not the 7th April it free, the thing is if you’re on a contract with CPI + 3.9% yearly price increase depending on you’re monthly price it might be worth staying on you’re old plan after few yearly increase.
A number of years back I had Max simo plan mean I also got included roaming in USA plus other places in the end the end after a few years of RPI increase I got rid of it due to not being cost effective anyway.
@optimist Yes some of the networks do offer free roaming in countries not in the EU.
Not all countries, just selected ones.
And the list changes over time, so you need to check with your network before travelling.
Thanks for the info, MilesT.
So whether or not to include roaming in the tariffs offered is a commercial matter for telcos, rather than regulators obliging telcos to charge all customers for it, not just those who choose it.
Just use a local SIM when I’m abroad again, some networks offer eSIM like Free in France and I regularly use a German SIM.
I understand the ‘boomers’ here are a tad anti phone use abroad (yet they probably buried their head in a newspaper / book for hours – same thing – different context) for me data access is needed and although free WiFi is high in availability, the quality can vary.
Fair enough if you don’t need a phone but with car hire access and eTickets all moving online, I think data access is useful.
Each to their own.
Quite right. Some of the comments I’ve read are hilarious and totally miss the point. A while ago, I was travelling to South America via Madrid. My plane was late leaving the UK. My luggage got lost en route and I had to spend an evening calling call-centres and using the internet. Such is life but having both a call and data allowance was essential. It’s not just for reading Facebook and other social media. I would have thought that readers of this site were just a little more like,y to understand that but obviously not!
In Thailand they have a few teams of people ready to sell and install a sim card for you, and you get nice data amount for the price, it’s great
My EE sim only deal runs out October this year and so and will
My inclusive EU roaming. I went to Sardinia earlier this year thinking I may need to switch my smart benefit but I didn’t have to do anything to get the EU roaming.
I’m switching to ID mobile (EU roaming + data roll over) once my EE contract ends.
I don’t recall any mobile operator originally “promising” not to reintroduce EU roaming charges as Martin Lewis claims in his press release.
As I remember, the phrase “no current plans to reintroduce” were often used and, as we should know, this type of business speak left the door open for when charges were to be introduced.
So, Brexit Britain, you made your bed, now lie in it!
roaming for most people who spend a week in a european destination for a week will be charged £14 a week (£2 a day). Think about that £14. its hardly the end of the world it it?
its far cheaper than it used to be before the EU introduced roaming fairness shall we call it
I remeber a holiday in greece in 2012 when three wanted £5 a day to use the internet. no calls OR texts.
Vodafone still offers the best roaming,
Incredibly good value for their roaming plus.
Agreed – Vodafone options of £1 per day for a purchase of either 8 or 15 day roaming passes in the EU which would cover regular holiday excursions.
Also, the “Red” SIM only plans include EU roaming.