Roaming experiences

Users from all over Europe are sending us their bad experiences with roaming:

Kenny, UK:
Heya. This is my experiences with roaming fees in the EU. I’m from Sweden but I live in the United Kingdom with my partner at the moment. But its difficult for me to keep good contact with my family and friends in Sweden. I think that the idea of the European Union is to bring people from all of Europe closer to each other. To understand each other and respect each other. But why not make it easier to keep contact with each other across Europe? I say NO to roaming fees in the EU!

Thomas, Austria:
In 2005 i was in Moscow, using my Austrian mobile phone to Call a company in prague in order to Organise a Meeting there. For approx. 10 outgoing and 10 incoming calls, i paid approx 850 EUR.

James, UK:
Fed up. £16 of checking emails a few times over three days, rest of the time I used (dodgy) hotel WiFi. How much is this costing consumers and businesses? It’s not good for commerce – unless you’re a mobile phone operator!Free single market? Not if you can’t use your data allowance between different states.And they said the current caps would be the end of “free” handsets and push up prices for roaming outside the EU…… all crap. The EU should legislate asap.

Nick, UK:
Roaming is a scam, and a cartel. £3000 itd cost me to reach my data tariff cap by roaming (500mb). I was in Prague on o2 and within minutes of turning on roaming on iPhone I got a txt saying i’d used £20. All I did was refresh my timeline on twitter..

Alvar, Spain:
Recently, I spent a month in Germany and, as my mobile phone is locked by my operator, I couldn’t buy a local SIM card, forcing me to pay roaming fees if I wanted to make a call or send text messages. With a conservative phone usage, over a month, I had to pay a €150 phone bill. And I’m a student.

Jürgen, Germany:
I live in the border triangle of Germany, France an Switzerland. For all business people in border areas, these roaming costs are an very expensive public nuisance. 1000 times higher costs abroad are not justifiable by nothing.

Edward, Germany:
Currently I pay in Germany EUR 28,- /month for 5 GB = 0,005 EUR/MB. Abroad they charge me EUR 3,50 per MB, that is 700 times more ! It shows the margins they make !

Mark, UK:
After a £880 bill for just having my phone on in the background I personally feel this legal loop-hole that allows the networks to fleece us has to close.

Mark, UK:
£45 limit per month of data roaming within the EU, reached in less than 15 mins of regular smartphone background data syncing, disgraceful!

Ben, Austria:
I regularly have to pay 30-50€ a month in roaming charges because I need travel to Germany often. Using local sim cards is not the best solution as it gets confusing at some point!

Estelle, UK:
After just 12 minutes on Spains turf 3 had charged me £23.00 just to whatsapp home to let them know I had landed safely!

Martin, Germany:
In Germany, 1GB of Data costs me 5 Euros. When I’m in Austria, 1 MB would cost me – 5 Euros. So, just because I’m in another state, it costs more than 1000 (!) times the normal price. This is crazy, this can’t be justified in any way!

Paul, UK:
My first month in germany cost me £2046!! 2 grand to square the loose ends away!! I am disgusted at the way we are fleeced. I serve to protect them and others, yet this is my return.

Michael, UK:
For the price 3 charge per Gb in Croatia (£10,000) you could buy a local laptop and dongle and a new car to carry them around. Whether local or roaming the same data follows the same path to the same destination and the cost of carrying it is the same apart from the need to send billing information when roaming.