O2 Roaming Partners

[hle13]

This is a long shot but does anyone know who the roaming partners are for O2 UK in the EU including Ireland please? I know there is O2 Germany so would think that a O2 UK user would be using O2 Germany but I just thought I ask if anyone knows?

 

[Meatball]

Telefonica still have a presence in Spain (Telefónica España including Movistar), Germany (Telefónica Deutschland) and have recently created a wholesale/roaming entity to consolidate so there will be ongoing changes.

In UK (o2) its 50:50 with VM and they also own Giffgaff.

The relationships between providers is complicated both with historic acquisitions, partnerships and new agreements. They have 100 strategic partners and more than 400 roaming agreements providing service in 170 countries. In Europe they are likely to have more than one agreement in a country depending on the coverage.

 

[Mike80]

This is a long shot but does anyone know who the roaming partners are for O2 UK in the EU including Ireland please? I know there is O2 Germany so would think that a O2 UK user would be using O2 Germany but I just thought I ask if anyone knows?

In Germany, you'll roam with O2 Germany. In fact from around 2016, it became impossible to select any other network [with an O2 UK SIM inserted], although I've not been over since 2020 to see if anything has changed.

 

[dabigm]

I can only speak from my personal experience, my previous company phone was O2.

In Sweden, it's Telia.
In Spain, Movistar
In Germany, O2 Germany ( although I've seen T-Mobile too in Munich!)
In Netherlands, KPN.
In France, Orange.

Sorry I haven't ever been to Ireland so I don't know.

 

[Mike80]

I can only speak from my personal experience, my previous company phone was O2.

In Sweden, it's Telia.
In Spain, Movistar
In Germany, O2 Germany ( although I've seen T-Mobile too in Munich!)
In Netherlands, KPN.
In France, Orange.

Sorry I haven't ever been to Ireland so I don't know.

Must be a while ago when you saw T-Mobile in Munich. (The T-Mobile brand was retired in Germany in 2010.) Since 2016, was unable to connect to Telekom.de network with an O2 SIM - shame, as Telekom had better coverage.

 

[hle13]

Must be a while ago when you saw T-Mobile in Munich. (The T-Mobile brand was retired in Germany in 2010.) Since 2016, was unable to connect to Telekom.de network with an O2 SIM - shame, as Telekom had better coverage.

I used to connect to Telekom with Three, they used to partner with E Plus but they were awful - with Telekom I get decent EE like coverage even in the U Bahn's tunnels of Hamburg and Berlin deep underground!

Don't think I've ever used O2 in Germany so no idea if they're better after taking over E Plus?

 

[mozzauk]

In Ireland its Three as o2 sold off the Irish business to them, you can roam on Eir Mobile and Vodafone IE

You used to be able to find all roaming partners on the GSM Association website..

 

[Mike80]

I used to connect to Telekom with Three, they used to partner with E Plus but they were awful - with Telekom I get decent EE like coverage even in the U Bahn's tunnels of Hamburg and Berlin deep underground!

Don't think I've ever used O2 in Germany so no idea if they're better after taking over E Plus?

Both networks were poor in comparison with the so-called "D" Networks*

But they've made big steps, switching off 3G and launching standalone 5G in a number of locations (see Cellmapper).

But I've not heard of O2 UK doing 5G roaming.

*D1: Telekom (was "T-D1", "T-Mobile")
D2: Vodafone DE (was "D2 Mannesman")
E1: (was "e-plus", took over by Telefonica)
E2: Telefonica t/a O2 DE (was "VIAG Interkom", a BT controlled company, spun off into mmO2 twenty years ago)

The D and E relates to the original frequency bands 900 MHz (D) and 1800 MHz (E). As latecomers, E1/E2 networks had to catch-up building mast sites, and had disadvantages due to higher frequencies. Only with the arrival of B20 and B28 and refarm of B1 for LTE is coverage being evened out.

 

[Sprogletto]

My experience when travelling to Spain with O2 was quite suprising that it preferred to ‘Roam’ on the Orange network instead of Movistar which I did try to manually connect to successfully but data wasn’t working which it would with Orange. No 5G abroad with any operator apart from Vodafone UK on any Vodafone roaming network though.

 

[Pheasant]

Seems like their preferred roaming in Croatia is with T-Mobile (TM HR).

Vodafone UK appears to prefer A1 HR (part of A1 Telekom Austria Group).