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. The chart below highlights roaming terms in Europe prior to that date, and the rest of the world.

Of course, with the UK set to leave the EU there’s every chance that EU roaming charges will return in the spring of 2019.

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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 strong for roaming, but only in Europe and only on certain plans.

For contract customers who signed up on or after 17 August 2016, here’s EE’s current roaming policy split down according to its three main plan types:

4GEE Essential

4GEE Essential customers can roam for free in 48 destinations across Europe (see below for a full list).

To roam further they can purchase a Travel Pass, which gives you 500MB of data and costs £5 per day in the US and Canada or £6 per day in Australia, China, India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey and UAE. However, this pass isn’t available if you joined EE on or after 10th May 2017.

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

4GEE Max

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

4GEE Max customers can additionally roam for free in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA, for 53 locations in total.

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 50 destinations at no extra cost, using their normal allowances.

For elsewhere in the world there’s Vodafone ‘Roam Further’, which will allow you to carry across your usual UK allotment for £6 per day in 60 non-European countries. Those are as follows:

For everywhere else, you can opt to pay £5 per day for 25MB under the Vodafone Data Traveller offering. That’s a lot of money for not a lot of data, though.

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 Feel At Home initiative lets all customers (even those on Three Essential Plans) use their phones as normal when abroad in 48 European destinations.

And if you’re on an Advanced Plan you can roam for free beyond Europe, in a total of 71 locations via Feel At Home Around The World.

The only limit is that users can’t use more than 13GB of their data allowance in Feel At Home Around The World locations

Pay As You Go customers simply need to convert their credit into an Add-On to feel the benefit of Feel At Home Around The World. When roaming in Europe you can just use your credit as normal.

If you’re on an Essential Plan and want to roam beyond Europe, or on an Advanced Plan and want to roam somewhere not covered by Feel At Home, 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 47 European destinations. The list can be seen in the chart below, but is similar to that offered by other networks.

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. 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 Three comes out on top, as it includes numerous locations beyond the EU, though only on pricier Advanced plans. EE offers a similar but slightly more limited service with its 4GEE Max plans.

However, for the widest selection of ‘cheap’ roaming locations you may actually want to opt for Vodafone or O2, as they offer add-ons which allow you to roam in a huge number of countries 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), so for most users Three is probably the best and most affordable option for roaming.

Beyond that, our one piece of advice for frequent travellers, then, 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.