two country use

[Anonymous]

I currently have a pay&go account and have upgraded my phone from an ancient voice mobile to a 4g phone. At home I'll use wireless for data, but when travelling in Europe will want to look at maps - I drive from England to Italy twice a year. With O2 Travel it looks like I get unlimited data with a monthly contract, but only 100MB with pay&go. Is this true? And does anyone know of a better contract for sudden infrequent bursts of large data usage? 

[darrengf]

@Anonymous Just bare in mind that O2 travel for contract is restricted at 150mb per day fair useage. If you use more than this o2 travel can be removed as you are abusing the meaning of Unlimited data abroad.

O2 travel is also heavy data speed restricted and get above 50mb and more slow restrictions apply. Maps, what's app fail to work. iMessage with no pics work and so does email.  But internet is slow to stop and maps fail to load. So does Twitter.

[MI5]

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@darrengf wrote:

@Anonymous Just bare in mind that O2 travel for contract is restricted at 150mb per day fair useage. If you use more than this o2 travel can be removed as you are abusing the meaning of Unlimited data abroad.

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150mb per day ?

Where are the T&C's that say this mate?

The text you receive when arriving clearly states "all the data you need" !

[MI5]

http://www.o2.co.uk/help/pay-monthly/using-your-phone-abroad

There's no limit to the amount of data you can use but you might find that speeds vary with usage. For receiving and making calls and sending texts there's a cap of 120 minutes and 120 texts a day. It's free to receive texts.

[darrengf]

@MI5 In the small print I'm afraid

There’s no fixed data allowance with O2 Travel, to manage traffic we may slow down the service. We may also slow down the service if you reach a level of data consumption which we deem to be excessive, network affecting, affecting the use of other customers or usage that is not in accordance with your terms of service. This will be more than 150MB of general data or more than 50MB of streamed video or audio data (the "assumed fair usage amounts”) in a day

http://www.o2.co.uk/termsandconditions/mobile/o2travel-paymonthly-terms-and-conditions

There  is actually more restrictions applied if you also look at the Traffic Management policy as another restraint is applied at 100mb.

So you first restriction is when you use o2 travel.  It's restricted to about 0.35Mbps Ul and Dl.

another restriction is just after 50mb, speeds are then 0.10mbps, 3rd restriction is at 100mb then last restriction is at 150mb.

if any of you can get it to 100mb on contract, good luck.  I've managed 80+Mbps and that's with constant use and phone going flat in Spain and then recharged it and continued using it.

R 

All the restrictions are in place so you don't damage the network, run up a bill for o2 and abuse it.

Unlimited never means unlimited in mobile terms,  there is either a excessive or fair useage amount.

three have unlimited data plans but it's still limited to 1000gb. There always have to be a number in the system as a pic does not understand the word unlimited.

also Three feel at home is limited to 12gb in a monthly billing cycle and speeds are restricted and some things don't work.  All networks do it to protect them selves

[MI5]

Exactly, TM, but no restriction on actual amounts other than that.
As I said in first reply it's very slow but good enough for map traffic updates.

[darrengf]

@MI5 You will get traffic map and updates in the first 50mb, but after that and the 2nd restriction coming on board, on my iPhone and android maps would not load and neither would traffic. Data was too slow to transmit maps etc.  I got data error or just the blue dot showing where I was and nothing on the screen.

ive tried this in Ireland, Spain, France, German, Luxemburg, Belgium and Netherlands.  Doesnt matter matter what network as well.

ive spoke to 2 people in high level at o2 and they come back to me with it's the foreign networks that stop you from using it and speeds,  but I've given evidence etc and then I've done a lot more digging on another post.  O2 don't say what speeds you will get or what will happen etc, just that Traffic management is applied on O2 travel which is another reason o2 have no access to 4G networks as there is no point due to the very heavy speed restrictions. 

I can however tell you that Tescos sims are not restricted and I got full 3G speeds in Spain, Ireland and France,  it was like lightning last summer

[jonsie]

I could get sod all to work here  apart from email but even then none of banner headings would load, just a square box. And for the princely sum of £4.99/day!

Opted out the day after....It may well have been unlimited but it was totally unusable.

[darrengf]

@jonsie Completely agree.  O2 travel has that many restrictions.  It's a safe net for both o2 not running up massive bill and you not running up a massive bill. But to me it's too harsh, I think you should be able to use the first 100mb at full speed and then slow it down to half after that and then when you do get to 150Mb restrict it more, but not from the word go.

one thing I forgot to mention. O2 has placed the restriction on when connecting to foreign 3G networks,  no restrictions seem to be applied on GPRS or Edge as speeds were faster sometimes on them than 3G. 

[MI5]

Yes, fully aware of the TM and speed restrictions and the general crapness of it all, but and sorry for being pedantic, I've not seen anywhere where it says "If you use more than this o2 travel can be removed as you are abusing the meaning of Unlimited data abroad." ?

[darrengf]

@MI5 We reserve the right to terminate your use of O2 Travel, if you are, in our reasonable opinion, in breach of your terms of service.  Trust me o2 can and will remove it.

Any how I'm of back to Dublin in Feb some time for day visit (Got to love Ryanair😜)

But I will be taking with me a o2 Payg sim to see if restrictions are applied to o2 travel on that,  I'm just curious that's all.