Throttling whilst abroad.

[JamesJ94]

I've just visited Australia for 3 weeks catching up with my son. I checked my O2 tariff and superb I could use it in Australia. Once I arrived I put the phone into Roaming and was connected to Telstra and that was fine. That's were the good news finished, trying to use any data was like being back on 14.4 dial up, loading my Skysports app took an age and then had page errors and when I tried to send a few photos on WhatsApp that was even worse. I contacted O2 support but had to do it when I got on WiFi as the app would take an age to do anything and then got pathetic replies like "Turn on Roaming" "turn phone on and off" "clean my sim card". I asked the question 4 times (I have logs to prove) and never got an answer. I was so fed up as we where travelling around Perth so not always on WiFi I nipped to a supermarket called Coles and purchased a Telstra PAYG sim card and after setting up using my passport BOOM we had data. 40Gb to last me 3 weeks and on my Samsung Fold 4 I could see that the signals where the same but using my PAYG sim I could do everything I thought I should have been able to with my O2 sim in Roaming mode.

So can anyone confirm that O2 throttles your service whilst Roaming so it basically can't be used,because looking through T&Cs I can't see anything.

James

[Bambino · Accepted solution]

@JamesJ94 O2 have been throttling data roaming for some time, and it's in the T&C's:

O2 | Mobile Terms and Conditions - O2 Travel Terms and Conditions

For the most part, data roaming is unusable.

[JamesJ94]

Hi, thanks for your reply and yes you are correct buried in there T&Cs it does mention throttling.

I was lucky to purchase the Telstra PAYG sim whilst in Australia and once my O2 sim only contract finishes I will move back to my old supplier.

The only frustration was the lack of customer service.

J.

[Bambino]

@JamesJ94 A lack of customer service from O2 comes as no surprise at all. If you get a good signal in the UK from O2 you should think before you switch, and also check the T & C's from your old supplier concerning roaming, as they might be doing the very same thing.

[Thorsson]

Hi

Does this throttling also apply to the European countries included in the monthly tariff? It's the only reason I moved to O2 as EE have better mobile coverage in my area.

[Enlli]

Does not apply in EU as there the total usage in one bill cycle is a max of 25GB 

Outside of EU it is supposedly unlimited

[Oxonian]

@JamesJ94 

Whilst the deficient customer service from O2 is certainly not a surprise, it is worth bearing in mind that telecoms and mobile' phone providers in the UK typically have mediocre customer service - you only need to look at the customer forums of the likes of Three to see this. 

Hence, I would not leave O2 because of customer service - or the lack of it - as you are likely to experience similar deficiencies elsewhere.