EE UK to Refresh Mobile Roaming Plans and Scraps Old Products UPDATE
Mobile operator EE (BT) has begun to inform their UK customers, specifically those with inclusive roaming, that their “current roaming products will be removed” from 25th December 2024. The plan is to replace them with new roaming plans, due for launch on 4th Dec 2024, but this has left some existing customers confused about the impact.
The first indications of a roaming refresh appeared to surface yesterday (credits to Jade for the tip), after existing EE customers with inclusive roaming (e.g. “EU Roaming“, “Roam Further” etc.) on their plans began to receive the following text message. But the message lacked any clear details for how each customer and their roaming packages would be affected by the change.
EEs Roaming Message
Our new roaming products will be launched on 4 December 2024.
Your current roaming products will be removed from 25 December 2024. We will send you a text to confirm when this has happened.
You can continue using your current roaming products until then, but to learn more about our new roaming services, visit [https://ee.co.uk/roamingrefresh]
If you’re travelling now, you can find out more about our existing roaming products by texting ROAMING to 150.
The linked page seems to summarise EE’s general roaming charges and states that their new “packages start from just £2.47 a day“, although one of their support staff did later confirm that those with inclusive EU roaming on their plans would continue to receive it (here): “We’re improving the roaming products available for chargeable EU bundles as well as rest of the world zones. If you have EU roaming already included in your plan, this will not be affected.”
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The same page also lists the operator’s new charges for different country zones, which are as follows, although it seems like some customers with certain existing roaming add-ons may have to wait a little longer before finding out precisely how their current service and price will be impacted (e.g. it’s unclear if some customers may now be left with no option but to take a more expensive daily or weekly package for certain regions).
The New Roaming Charges / Products
EU
Daily Charge – £2.47 | Calls, texts and data – UK allowances | Inclusive Extra – YES
Austria | Azores | Belgium | Bulgaria | Croatia | Cyprus ( excluding Northern Cyprus) | Czech Republic | Canary Islands | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | French Guiana | Germany | Gibraltar | Greece | Guadeloupe | Guernsey | Hungary | Iceland | Isle of Man | Italy | Jersey | Latvia | Liechtenstein | Lithuania | Luxembourg | Madeira | Malta | Martinique | Mayotte | Monaco | Netherlands | Norway | Poland | Portugal | Reunion Islands | Romania | San Marino | Saint Martin ( French ) | Saint Barthelemy | Slovak Republic/Slovakia | Slovenia | Spain ( inc Balearic Islands ) | Sweden | Switzerland | Vatican City
Zone 1 (includes United States, China, Australia and more)
Daily Charge – £5 | 7 Day Charge – £25 | Calls, texts and data – UK allowances | Inclusive Extra – YES
Albania | Algeria | Australia | Bangladesh | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Canada | China | Dominican Republic | Faroe Islands | Fiji | Indonesia | Israel | Kuwait | Malaysia | Mexico | Moldova | Montenegro | New Zealand | Oman | Peru | Puerto Rico | Qatar | Serbia | Seychelles | Singapore | South Africa | South Korea | Taiwan | Thailand | Turkey | United Arab Emirates | United States | Vietnam
Zone 2 (includes India, Egypt and more)
Daily Charge – £7.50 | 7 Day Charge – £37.50 | Calls, texts and data – UK allowances | Inclusive Extra – NO
Armenia | Bahrain | Colombia | Ecuador | Egypt | Ghana | India | Kenya | Nigeria | Russia | Rwanda | Saudi Arabia | Sudan | Tanzania | Uganda | Ukraine | Uruguay | Zambia
Zone 3 (includes Brazil, Japan, Morocco and more)
Daily Charge – £7.50 | 7 Day Charge – NO | Calls, texts and data – UK allowances | Data – 500 Mb | Inclusive Extra – NO
Andorra | Anguilla | Antigua and Barbuda | Argentina | Aruba* | Bahamas | Barbados | Belarus | Belize | Bermuda | Botswana | Brazil | British Virgin Islands | Cambodia | Cameroon | Cape Verde | Cayman Islands | Chile | Costa Rica | Dominica | El Salvador | Greenland | Grenada | Guinea | Guyana | Haiti* | Hong Kong | Iraq | Ivory Coast | Jamaica | Japan | Jordan | Kazakhstan | Liberia | Macao | Madagascar | Mali | Mauritius | Montserrat | Morocco | Netherland Antilles | Nicaragua | North Macedonia | Pakistan | Panama | Philippines | Saint Kitts and Nevis | Saint Lucia | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | Senegal | Sri Lanka | Trinidad and Tobago | Tunisia | Turks and Caicos Islands | Uzbekistan
Zone 4 (includes Nepal, Maldives and more)
Daily Charge – £15 | 7 Day Charge – NO | Calls and texts – £2.34/min, £0.76/SMS, £0.89/MMS | Data – 10 Mb | Inclusive Extra – NO
Afghanistan | Azerbaijan | Benin | Bhutan | Bolivia | Brunei Darussalam | Democratic Republic of Congo | Ethiopia | Falkland Islands | Gabon | Gambia | Georgia | Kosovo | Iran | Laos | Lebanon | Lesotho | Maldives | Mangolia | Mozambique | Myanmar | Namibia | Nepal | Palestine | Sierra Leone | Tajikistan | Venezuela | Zimbabwe | Aircraft | Maritime, Ships, Ferries & Cruises
Zone 4 – no data. Calls and texts available
Daily Charge – NO | 7 Day Charge – NO | Calls and texts – £2.34/min, £0.76/SMS | Inclusive Extra – NO
Angola | Burkina Faso | Burundi | Chad | Congo | Cook Islands | Cuba | Djibouti | Equatorial Guinea | Guam | Guatemala | Guinea-Bissau | Honduras | Kyrgyzstan | Laos | Libya | Malawi | Mauritania | Niger | Papua New Guinea | Paraguay | Saint Pierre and Miquelon | Suriname | Swaziland | Syria | Togo | Tonga | Turkmenistan | Vanuatu | Yemen
UPDATE 3:33pm
ISPreview has been informed by EE that the goal of this refresh is to simplify their international roaming proposition, improve customer experience and give better value to customers. The operator suggests that some of their legacy roaming passes were also no longer fit for purpose and needed to be streamlined.
On the positive side of things, the operator has reviewed their country classifications and, for example, added more popular destinations to zone 1 (these are inclusive on some mobile plans). Similarly, on the old roaming passes, a separate pass was required for each service (calls, texts and data) when visiting countries like Turkey. But the new roaming passes mean that only one pass is now required.
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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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Packages start from just £2.47 per day.. that’s just £2.47 per day more than O2, Tesco, Giffgaff, Smarty, Lebara, 1P, etc!
Try using your O2-based mobile for any data in busy areas or city centres though. Good luck with O2, Tesco, Giffgaff etc. Enjoy your 2G on VF because of 3G switchoff.
My point being – there’s more to being a good network than roaming costs.
To Jon 1p is EE based and Lebara is Vodafone based am away to Tenerife in 29 days and got free roaming with O2
To Declan I was quite intentional with the providers I referenced and the comments I made. Enjoy your free EU-roaming.
@Jon Indeed, but do you really think those of us who are with a network that still has free EU roaming (Lebara, in my case) would be with that network if it wasn’t working well for us in the UK?
“Thank you for signing up to a 24 month contract which includes roaming. We’d like to unilaterally remove that benefit, without reducing the amount that you pay us. Hope that’s okay. Lots of love from your friends at EE.”
Fantastic observation.
Brexit. The gift that keeps giving.
I knew someone would bring that up, what about the other countries that are not in the E.U, do you expect to roam in them for free?
Roaming feed is just a money making scam, since most of the companies that run the networks in the U.K also run and own the networks in other countries.
Better off to get a SIM in the country you are visiting, that is if you have a phone with a physical SIM slot, something else they are trying to get rid of and it is certainly not for our benefit.
Indeed. Given this is about EE the well-known mass of BT group mobile networks worldwide they could be letting themselves roam with free.
Telefonica own half of O2 and basically alongside Liberty Global have assets in some Spanish speaking countries worldwide and some of the EEA. Most of what is realistic to roam with you can for free.
Three own majority stakes in networks in about 15 countries worldwide.
Vodafone are the only genuinely worldwide coverage mobile company of our four. The UK is an awful market for them for profitability. Giving out free roaming would make it even worse.
eSIMs are fine. Can’t steal an eSIM and rinse it. If you’ve done some travel recently you’ll have seen many places you have to either buy a SIM in the airport from a dedicated kiosk that wants ID or provide details when you register it for use same as you would an eSIM.
Not a big surprise you’re a fan of the older way.
Which mobile networks do you believe BT owns outside the UK?
I never liked EE but their network is very good. I am glad I am on 1p mobile (including 14GB roaming data) last year I went to Spain twice and data roaming never went over 14GB for Whatsapp chat to families)
I am driving to continental Europe twice a year for holidays, I am with O2 and even if I am listening internet radio, Spotify or use satnav pulling traffic data all the time I’ve never exceeded 5GB (out of 25GB allowed in roaming).
EE’s network is the only one that can’t make HD calls to all other UK MNOs and the only one that can’t support call merge or conference calling. That’s not in any way what I would calll “very good”.
Old Blue Shirt Guy, finally someone that’s pointing this out. Thank you so much.
I personally have been with EE since 2018 and call quality has always been an issue. No matter what phone you use, what plan you’re on EE just doesn’t do HD calling. It absolutely blows my mind how all the other networks are able to do it but EE simply can’t.
If anyone else is able to explain why EE can’t do this please comment below. I’m really curious to find out why EE can’t do HD calling.
I use HD voice on EE, no idea what you’re on about
Anonymous, it only works in like 1-2 situations. No one ever said they haven’t used it before.
Please check this for more reference: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/call-quality-between-mobile-networks.39884/
Just to clarify HD calls work to other EE number and Vodafone/O2. However they don’t work to Three customers or some MVNOs. This becomes a big issue if you have a number originally allocated from EE and want to port to say Three, as then all your inbound calls from other networks will not be in HD, due to the way UK porting works. All the other networks including Three can usually call EE numbers in HD however! The whole thing is a mess and the only solution if you have an EE allocated number and want all calls in HD is to port to Vodafone!
Old Blue Shirt Guy oh they actually work?
In that case I apologise for my comment above, I take that back.
To be honest I was basing my assumption on the discussion I have linked above. I have always had an iPhone with EE so I had no way of verifying that myself.
So just to confirm, HD calling works between Vodafone and EE, O2 and EE and viceversa? And it’s just Three that is a bit more tricky and only works if a person with a Three sim calls another person with an EE sim but not viceversa?
This will drive a lot away – my parents for example – who have the roaming still free on older packages.
EE roaming quality is questionable yet prices extortionate. Will they make roaming even more expensive now? Who is writing those notifiations, its not internship season yet?
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/ee-roaming-in-germany-defaults-to-edge-was-ee-getting-only-or-mostly-4g-where-it-was-5g-before.42532/
Roaming in the USA with EE is currently £25 for a month with their Roam Abroad Pass….. the new “Better” offer will now cost £100 for the same…. I will be leaving EE !!
I moved from EE to 1p earlier in the year – one of the drivers for that was the Roam Abroad pass going from £10 to £25 in the space of a year. Then on my recent trip to the USA I simply spent £4 on an eSIM that worked nicely for a week instead.
I’m on the horn with them now about this. I have a roam further package, which means I don’t pay a penny for anything in the EU or US, which I travel to most. The notion that “Roaming is getting
better” is laughable at best if they remove what I already pay for in favor of paying more…or paying the same for less. We’ll see what they say. This was the main reason I opted for EE to begin with. If this does change, guess there’s no more incentive.
I guess roaming charges are an easy way to try and mitigate Labours NI Tax raid without affecting the majority of customers.
Just be thankful that no job cuts have been announced, YET.
The problem is the Conservative’s brexit removed all the regulations. At least now with a competent government we stand a chance of similar regulations again.
4x the price for roaming in the US, no obvious change in the cost to EE. It’s a FlEEcing 🙁
To be fair that’s a very selective way of looking at it… How many people holiday for a whole month in one country?
If you only go for a week like most(?) people, then the expanded list of destinations may make this cheaper.
I have USA roaming included in my contract presumably I either get to keep that, get the expanded destinations list or cancel penalty free. Any of those is fine by me
These days, I think roaming eSIMs are the way to go. Much cheaper than what MNOs charge you. Or, for EU roaming, go with a MVNO… they still have free EU roaming.
Yep for sure outside the EU eSim is the way to go. £2.50 a day for EU is competitive with eSim as long as ‘UK allowance’ actually means UK allowance without any restrictive ‘fair use’ nonsense.
want to know if they are going to have a fair use policy on this or if unlimited will mean unlimited
Do we think this may make the EE MVNO’s change their roaming policies too?
I for one will be switching my roaming off if it goes up any more than the £25,
Waaaaay back in time in the early days of GSM, I remember roaming in Iceland. 25p a minute when it was about 20p in the UK. A few months later they started doing these bands of charges to simplify things.
Iceland suddenly was £1.50 a minute, and that was for my benefit.
Where’s ofcom in this?
Their useless ‘regulation’ around percentage increases means that my £7 a month O2 SIM is going up by £1.80 a month – over 25% which, of course, they don’t need to point out in the announcement.
Thanks, ofcom, hope your DEI policies are on track!
I was about to jumb ship to EE from Vodafone because of their better coverage and I’d be in a 5G coverage area. I’ll now be looking for alternatives. Dodged a bullet at least.
7 day zone 1 pass @ £25…. Doesn’t scream better value for money or simplicity to me. The current roam further inclusive extra works absolutely fine. Another reason to leave EE added to the list now.
With eSIM being so affordable and straightforward, roaming is a rather pricey relic of the past.
EE are again trying to con customers getting you to take out new contract don’t do it they did this afew years ago and I fell for it. They said I need to take out a new contract soon as I did lost Roaming.
Just ignore and carry on with your old plan. That way they have to honour your original contract with Roaming.
This is disgusting behaviour. £100 a month for roaming in the US compared to the previous £25 a month. Granted, most wouldn’t be in the US for a month, but I’d say two weeks is quite common for a holiday to the US. It’s extortion.
Happy Christmas everyone!!!
I left EE several years ago aftern falling out with them over EU roaming charges, rate limited plans and unreasonable annual price increases. I missed the quality of the network. With dual sim coming to iphone in the form of eSim I feel i’ve found a reasonable balance. A Scancom eSim for data paired with an O2 £8 a month 32GB sim with inclusive EU roaming
Paul
That is a good balance.
I’m with EE and we go to the states a couple of times a year, i’ve found the ee roaming service in the past to be terrible from a service perspective with the traffic being routed back to the UK and no 5g access while roaming, so I get an esim for each trip from buzzesim which costs me £20-25 for 15 days of access on t-mobile with full 5g, i’ll be carrying on doing this as the current price hikes are ridiculous
At least allowing Vodafone and Three to merge will mean more competition to keep prices competitive… Hmmm, or maybe not!
EE has suddenly removed £25 per month roaming pass. The only option now is £2.47 per day = £74 per month!
I have a contract so can’t change suppliers and I can’t get through to them on the phone to complain.
Can they really up their charges like this?