Review on O2 Travel in France, Belgium, Netherlands (Speed Restrictions shocking)

[darrengf]

So I thought I would do a new Review on the new O2 travel when I went  to Belgium, France and Netherlands last week.

When I first saw that O2 had removed the 15mb allowance for Europe, I was really excited and thought I’m now able to use my phone much better over in the EU.

However I have to be honest and say I was extremely disappointed to say the least. Infact I was shocked how badly O2 have got it.

So I will explain. £1.99 for unlimited Data (I’m on contract) per day is great value for money. I understand that after 100mb further restrictions apply and that speed restrictions are in place when you are in the EU from the word dot. However this is where the problem lies, the restrictions are that bad and I really dread to think what it’s like when you hit 100mb of Data, because I couldn’t get near it. Not even after Hours and Hours of use.

These are the speeds I was getting, No mater what time of day or Network on. I know the networks shown were just in Belgium, However I can tell you that in France it was the same and the Netherlands failed to work at all it was that bad.

 

 So for Example.

Send or Receive Pictures over iMessage would take 10-15 Mins.

Using Twitter, would take 10-20 seconds per image to view, and just refused to load some altogether.

Youtube or Vine Videos, didn’t work at all

Apple Maps would load, However Google Maps couldn’t keep up with Data and just timed out, or showed blank screen with a Moving Dot.

Face Time, did work for a couple of seconds, but on many occasions wouldn’t even connect, Face Time audio did connect once, and then failed.

Using the internet to browse was painfully slow, or just didn’t work at all. Searching on Google would take average 5-15 seconds to load a search page.

Sending normal MMS and being charged 40p (Like lightning)

1st day I managed 63.08Mb, however this is with charging my iPhone up twice and using it most of the day

2nd day I managed 68.11Mb. All Day usage. Again had to charge iPhone up at the end

3rd day I managed 69.88 Mb. Again All Day usage and iPhone had to be charged.

The Reason for the phone going flat was that sending any pics over iMessage took that long it just drained the phone because of the speed, also using the general internet again drained the phone.

I was in Europe for longer than 3 days, but after the 3rd day, I couldn’t cope with it anymore, so I put my EE PAYG sim in and paid £5 per 100mb per day. Cost me more but the speeds were normal 3G speeds and in France I got 4G Speeds. I also never had to charge the phone once during the day as everything worked great.

So this was the average speeds I got with my EE PAYG sim in Belgium, France was much faster at 20Mb + on 4G

So O2 lost out because of their ridicules speed restraints. whoever decided the speed restrications needs to spend time in EU and use them like I did. I totally understand restricting it after 100Mb, or even restricting it to 1Mbps download for first 100Mbs, but please, let me get there in the first place. I can’t fault O2 for O2 travel, it’s just a shame it’s that restricted it’s not useable any more.

I wonder if this what the EU had in mind? Looks great on Paper, just in real life is useless!

Something that was so good has been made so bad to use 

I know people will be saying, well you used 60+ Mb each day, Yes I dont disagree with that, but this is from 8am to 11pm of use on 2 days and on 1 day it was even later. I dont mind paying for any Service, But please please let me able to use it for a little before you put restrictions in place.

[Anonymous]

I'm just recently back from a road trip through France, Germany, Switzerland and into Italy.
I was glad in a way that O2 had lifted the £1.99/ 15Mb (6 months earlier it was 25Mb)
I was using my iPhone with the TomTom App and using the traffic which was worthwhile in a few occasions.
Also used my device as a personal hotspot to upload drivers card to web, and didn't notice any difference in speed than back here in UK.
I did try using the O2 Travel App where it was supposed to tell you how much data you were supposed to be using on a daily basis, but it said I wasn't roaming? I did check the My O2 App and that did show the additional charges for the days I had data turned on.
If I needed to upload anything then I waited until somewhere that had wifi.
One thing to bear in mind if trying to use phone on Ferry, is to check what network you are on, as the Ships Network can be a tad expensive!

[jonsie]

Glad you had a good experience

Quite a few people have fallen victim to the extortionate charges on ships and ferries and come home to very large bills!:smileysad:

[Cleoriff]

Agree about the ships networks,. This is when a lot of people get caught out....:smileysad:

[darrengf]

http://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Other-Products-Services/o2-Travel-Dublin/m-p/878644#M17468

This just shows that O2 Travel is not what it should be.

More and more people on here moan regarding O2 Travel.

I think it's a superb Idea, however it needs better Mangement of it. So it needs to change and clearly say,
"From the word Go, you data will be that slow, it's quicker to walk"

[perksie]

Still a very poor offer from O2 in Europe. 

[jonsie]

And why just limit it to Europe? The world is a much smaller place these days and we in the UK are a multicultural society. Literally thousands of O2 customers travel much broader than Europe and the costs here are £1.50 per minute with a minimum charge of £1.50. No per second billing, rounded up to the nearest minute.

[Anonymous]

I vouch for what AndrewBamford is saying. I'm traveling very often to Spain (15 weeks this year) and I always leave data on. I don't mind paying the 1.99, but the speed is really bad. On my next trip I'll take screenshots of speed tests and will be sending it to O2. If they won't sort it out, will probably move over to Vodafone.

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Anonymous Well all I can say is it must be very different over Wifi. Like you, I spend about 15 weeks a year in Spain and find using Wifi no different  to using it in the UK. On the very rare occasions I use mobile data I have no problems. I use the Movistar network and avoid Vodafone ES and Orange ES as they are useless.

Incidentally for info I travel to the Costa Del Sol region

[Anonymous]

Hi @Cleoriff! I travel to Barcelona. I'm normally on Movistar, and usually in the morning, on the way to the office, I stop for a coffee and to read my feeds. And this is when its painful - some mornings, I can't even load some simple feeds. I have an iPhone 6 Plus and its set up to not update apps or anything over mobile network (only over wifi). So I tend to believe the restrictions apply from 0 MB instead of 100 MB, as O2 is saying.

[Cleoriff]

Hi @Anonymous Maybe more congestion in Barcelona? Its the only thing I can think of as we are both using the same network. I am currently in Spain at present and you can see how quickly I have responded (Mind you, I am in my apartment and using WiFi...):smileywink: