For those of you on the O2 network in the United Kingdom who roam beyond the European Union, prepare to dig deeper into your pockets if you want to use your phone beyond the boundary of the European Union.
If you’re roaming in the following countries, you charges shoot up from 81p/minute to £1.50, whilst receiving a call goes up 52p to £1.25
- Albania,
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Croatia
- Macedonia
- Serbia
- Morocco
- Tunisia Turkey
Other zones are also going up.
- United States and Canada: From 90p to £1.10 for making a call, from 39p to 90p for receiving a call.
- Asia Pacific region, (including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore): From 60p to 80p for making and 43p to 80p for receiving a call.
In other nasty news, text message increases across the board to 40p a text message.
Meanwhile, the only thing that will remain the same is the outside EU roaming cost when using data, which is still an eyewatering at £6 per MB, with a cap of 50MB or £40.
Whilst roaming inside the European Union is regulated quite hard (so prices remain reasonable), beyond those borders operators are free to charge what they like.
And in the end its the consumer who ends up paying. Wonderful isn’t it?
As usual, I’d recommend in a cheap SIM-Free phone, and a local SIM card where possible for the best savings…
If you’re travelling to multiple destinations, I recommend an international SIM card. It’s a meet-in-the-middle solution, particularly if you’re hitting several destinations in one trip. You get your SIM before you travel, pre-load it with credit (though the one I got from GO-SIM came with some free credit already) and you’re good to go. So significantly cheaper than roaming with your O2 SIM but less convenient – except there’s no need to pick up a new SIM when you cross the next border. Their rates are pretty good across the board in terms of calling. Data rates are also good in a lot of popular destinations, but there are some areas where it’s still absurdly pricey.