Roaming explanation...

[Anonymous]

Morning all. New here, been an O2 customer for years and years though (BT Cellnet originally!).

Just a quick one about roaming.

I recently took a week in Germany, and before I went I researched O2's roaming policies. Friends on EE and Vodafone had add-ons which, for £1.50 per day, would allow them use of their contract benefits from abroad - that's all of the included texts, minutes, and most importantly data, when roaming anywhere in Europe.

I decided to check out O2's policy for this and was astonished that for £1.50 a day I could use only 15MB of data. Now, given how large photos and websites are getting, understandably this was gone by lunchtime each day and I had to buy additional bolt ons to carry on going.

This is where it gets more annoying. O2-UK are owned by Telefonica, as I understand it, part of the Telefonica Europe group. While I was out in Germany, I was roaming on, funnily enough, O2-DE... owned by Telefonica... part of the Telefonica Europe group...

Why? Why are there still roaming charges for two parts of the same companies network? Are they charging themselves for roaming then passing the cost onto me? I'm not understanding...!

[jonsie · Accepted solution]

They are technically 2 different companies so roaming charges will apply.

However you should have O2 Travel which costs £1.99/day when using data.

https://www.o2.co.uk/shop/international/using-phone-in-europe?cm_mmc=googleuk-_-PPC_Direct_Travel-_-...

[Anonymous]

Hi

It's like the Ireland O2 too.

They are separate entities.

Just how it is.

[MI5]

Are you on contract or PAYG?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
Hi

It's like the Ireland O2 too.

They are separate entities.

Just how it is.

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Don't know what happens on mainland Europe but it is common in Northern Ireland to "roam" into O2 Ireland network without crossing a physical/geographical land boundary. 

Gerry

[MI5]

That can happen if you are close to any border - You can even pick up French networks when on the South coast of the UK mainland.

[jonsie]

One reason to alway set your phone to manual network selection when near bordering countries.

[Anonymous]

In that case it's best I believe to set ones phone settings to manually latch onto a specific network.

[Cleoriff]

Slightly away from the OPs problems and more to do with manual network selection....My phone seems to recognise immediately when I land in Spain...straight to Movistar..no searching... no fiddling around..no selecting for me. 

Jokingly...I think it recognises its second home

[Anonymous]

I'm on contract.

Funnily enough that 50MB deal wasn't available at the time (August!) 50MB would have been much more useful!!