Best network for roaming

Using your phone abroad used to be a sure-fire way to incur a massive bill at the end of the month. That’s no longer necessarily the case, but it’s still important to examine where each of the major UK networks stands on the matter.

The term for using your phone abroad is ‘roaming’. This is a reference to the fact that you’re no longer using your UK network to place calls, send texts, and access the internet. Rather, you’re using a local network.

Using a foreign network typically incurs additional charges, but a mixture of legislation and cooperation between the world’s networks has reduced the penalty for roaming in certain key territories. In particular, UK networks offer free roaming in the EU, and in some cases free roaming or reduced prices in many other locations.

Here’s a breakdown of the roaming policies adopted by EE, O2, Vodafone and Three. But first, a small note on the state of roaming in the EU.

Roaming in the EU

The EU dropped all roaming charges from June 15, 2017. This means that making calls, sending texts and using the internet on your phone will cost the same as at home when in any country that’s a member of the EU, whatever network or plan you're on – though when it comes to data there are often fair use limits.

Of course, with the UK now in the process of leaving the EU, that could soon change. The situation at the time of writing is that if the UK agrees to leave with a deal then free EU roaming will remain until at least the end of 2020, when the implementation period ends. Whether it continues to be offered after that will depend on the deal that’s arranged and potentially on what the networks themselves decide.

However, if we leave with no deal (with the date for that currently set at January 31st at the time of writing), then there will be no regulations saying that networks have to continue offering free EU roaming, so it will be down to the networks themselves as to whether they do or not. They may choose not to not simply because they can, but because their own costs for offering the service might go up, since networks in other countries will be able to charge them more for their services.

The major UK networks have all broadly said that they have no current plans to change their roaming terms, regardless of the terms of our withdrawal from the EU, but their statements are vague and leave the possibility of roaming charges returning in the future. The exception to this is Three, which offered free roaming in much of Europe before it had to and claims to remain committed to that.

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* Add-ons come at an additional cost. For more information on available add-ons see the detailed information for each network below.

EE

The UK’s biggest network is reasonable for roaming, but arguably not as good as its main rivals.

For all new, upgrading and existing customers, here’s EE’s current roaming policy split down according to its two plan types (as of December 2019):

Essential plans

Essential plan customers can roam for free in 48 destinations across Europe (see below for a full list).

To roam further they can purchase a Roam Further Data Pass for £10 per month. This adds roaming in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the US.

There’s also a Travel Data Pass, which gives you 500MB of data and costs £4.80 per day in the US and Canada or £6 per day in Australia, China, India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and UAE. It can also be purchased for £6 per day in 45 other destinations including Brazil, Japan and Jamaica, but in these places you only get 150MB of data.

To get the Travel Data Pass, text TRAVEL to 150 before you go or while you’re abroad.

Smart plans

If you’re on one of EE’s high-end Smart plans, you can not only roam for free across the EU (up to a 15GB ‘fair usage cap’) but also beyond.

Smart plan customers can optionally add a Roam Further pass to their plan at no extra cost, letting them roam for free in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA, for 53 locations in total. The Travel Data Pass detailed above is also available to Smart plan customers.

Note that the Roam Further pass is one of a number of Swappable Benefits available to Smart plan customers, so choosing it means you won’t be able to choose something else, but as the name suggests, these benefits are swappable, so you can add and remove Roam Further as needed.

Vodafone

Vodafone has been one of the better UK networks when it comes to roaming charges of late. Back in May 2016, it scrapped roaming charges altogether for 40 European countries (many of which offer 4G speeds) for new and upgrading pay monthly customers.

And now all Vodafone customers can roam at no extra cost in 48 destinations, using their normal allowances.

Global Roaming Plus

All Unlimited Max plans bought from 10th July 2019, along with all Red Entertainment plans sold with a phone from 15th August 2018 to 9th July 2019, and Red Entertainment SIM Only plans sold from 4th September 2018 to 9th July 2019, additionally have access to ‘Global Roaming Plus’, which is free roaming in the above locations plus 29 more, for 77 total.

The additional locations include:

Albania, Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Australia, Barbados, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Ghana, Grenada, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Mexico, Montserrat, Mozambique, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, South Africa, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent, St Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, UK Virgin Islands, USA.

Roam Further

For elsewhere in the world there’s Vodafone ‘Roam Further’, which will allow you to carry across your usual UK allowances for £6 per day in 104 destinations, which include:

Afghanistan, Albania, Andorra, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bermuda, Bonaire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cambodia, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Democratic Republic of, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Laos, Lesotho, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Russia, Saba, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent, Suriname, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Uruguay, US Virgin Islands, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

5G roaming

Vodafone also lets customers on a 5G plan roam at 5G speeds in select locations, which at the time of writing no other major UK network does.

5G speeds are available in parts of Spain, Italy and Germany.

Three

While Three is the smallest of the UK’s ‘big four,’ it’s one of the best when it comes to roaming - at least in a number of carefully selected areas.

Three’s Go Roam initiative lets all customers (even those on Three’s older Essential Plans) use their phones as normal when abroad in 49 European destinations (up to 20GB of data).

And if you’re on anything other than an Essential Plan (including all current plans at the time of writing) you can roam for free beyond Europe, in a total of 71 locations via Go Roam Around the World.

The only real limit is that users can’t use more than 12GB of their data allowance in Go Roam Around the World locations.

 

If you’re on an Essential Plan and want to roam beyond Europe, or on another plan type and want to roam somewhere not covered by Go Roam, there’s also a Data Passport, which gives you unlimited data in many locations for £5 per day.

O2

O2 allows customers to roam for no extra cost in 48 European destinations. The list can be seen in the chart below, but is similar to that offered by other networks.

Note that there’s a 20GB data limit when roaming with an unlimited data plan, but this limit doesn’t seem to apply with other plans, some of which come with more than 20GB of data.

On some new plans you can also roam in Argentina, Australia, Botswana, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greenland, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Rwanda, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yemen. However, rather than your standard allowance you get 120 minutes, 120 texts and unlimited data in these locations.

Want to go further? O2 also offers an O2 Travel bolt-on for £4.99 per day, which gives you unlimited data, 120 minutes and 120 texts in the locations below.

Cost Comparison

As we’ve seen, each UK network has its own roaming provisions and deals that can reduce the cost of using your phone while travelling dramatically. However, they also each have a list of base charges that apply when none of these provisions is met.

By way of a comparison, here is a table that compares the basic unsubsidised costs of placing a local call, sending a text, and surfing the web in three of the most popular destinations for UK travellers. 

Conclusion

As you can see, standard roaming charges are hardly what you’d call cheap. But each network’s roaming initiative can provide massive savings in their own separate way.

But there are some clear highlights. For global roaming at no extra cost Vodafone comes out on top, as it includes more locations than any other network and fewer restrictions, albeit only on select plans. Three comes close though, as would O2 but for its slightly restrictive minute and text allowances.

For the widest selection of ‘cheap’ roaming locations Vodafone again comes out on top, as it offers add-ons which allow you to roam in locations that aren’t ‘free’ for an affordable daily charge.

That’s only worth doing of course if the add-ons cover locations that you plan to roam in (and which you can’t roam for free in on other networks), but still leaves Vodafone on top overall.

Beyond that, our one piece of advice for frequent travellers is to pick out the UK network that offers the best roaming coverage for the highest number of countries you intend to visit over the coming two years of your contract.