dgadee
Well-known member
They are internationally owned companies. Of course they can keep free roaming. Eg Virgin: "It is owned by VMED O2 UK Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica."
Anither mobile abroad query
- Thread starter dgadee
- Start date
They are internationally owned companies. Of course they can keep free roaming. Eg Virgin: "It is owned by VMED O2 UK Limited, a 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica."
AndersG
Active member
The EU networks can charge the UK networks what they want after Brexit.
AndersG
Active member
Virgin does not have free roaming either.
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Sailfree
Well-known member
It free if you want a mobile phone as I do!
I dont want a cinema on my phone or a computer
billskip
Well-known member
If you just want a phone... the "lite phone" I think only does calls and time (clock)
dgadee
Well-known member
Just noticed that my £100 phone has two sim slots. I will see about a Greek sim if Smarty bu**er me.
Bilgediver
Well-known member
That's what I do in Switzerland. Get Lebara in a supermarket.
billskip
Well-known member
This roaming problem..is it a problem with phone or internet? As it seems more likely to me to be an internet problem, why dont people buy one of those sim wifi routers and use local sim's ?
paddywackcocker
Member
?, and agree with other post that they are international company’s so smacks of cartel type arrangement but seems to be slowly falling, plus their all starting to offer more and more.
Davy_S
Well-known member
Giffgaff have also reduced their roaming cap, from the 26th July, it has been reduced from 20 down to 5gb, after that you are charged.
st599
Well-known member
The UK is quite free in allowing people to buy local SIMs, other countries aren't. So you may need to go to a Government office with your proof of address (Germany and Austria) or your Tax Number (Italy) etc.
jordanbasset
Well-known member
You can do this, but the issue is upto a certain decision we had free roaming with our existing phone/dongle.
Now if we want to have Internet access abroad many of us will need to pay additional costs snd have additional hassle.
billskip
Well-known member
This begs the question, what is your real problem? It wasn't always free roaming prior to your problem.
A friend doesnt pay extra whene he brings his phone from UK, maybe your with the wrong provider?
jordanbasset
Well-known member
My response was to your post when you said
'why dont people buy one of those sim wifi routers and use local sim's'
Of course people can do that, but it's an extra expense to what was the situation.
Very few providers now provide free roaming for new contracts, unlike the situation before when they were legally obliged to.
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syvictoria
Well-known member
Who is your friend's provider, and when did he sign up for his current deal?
billskip
Well-known member
I think its 02, I was very concerned with him incurring charges, I offered him a spare phone I had, he declined and said no problem and showed me a text from them saying roaming was free.
billskip
Well-known member
But you are trying to steer this into another direction.
The situation like it or not is as it is.
My thoughts are that if one buys a mini wifi sim card router device, one can keep ones phone sim and buy a local sim anywhere in the world and not be just restricted to UK or anywhere.
They are not expensive.
AndersG
Active member
O2 does have free EU roaming up to the fair usage limit which at the moment is 25GB.
jordanbasset
Well-known member
I agree the situation is as it is, we are worse off than we were, but we do have to suck it up and put up with the extra costs and inconvenience.
In the same way we need to now limit ourselves to 90 days in every 180, unless we get a visa and commit to spending at least 6 months in another country
What we shouldn't do though is try and pretend nothing has changed.
st599
Well-known member
No, one can't. As I said in post 31, the UK is one of the few countries to allow anyone to buy a SIM, many other countries are restrictive. For example in Italy you need to provide your Italian tax number to register a SIM.