O2 roaming rates to rise by up to 140% O2 will increase its roaming costs for making calls outside the EU by nearly 140 per cent this month. The network is set to raise the cost of making calls in the US and Canada from 90p a minute to £1.10, while increasing the charge to receive calls from 39p to 90p. Sending a text from across the pond will set punters back 40p …
All you do is:
go to www.o2.co.uk/unlockmyiphone (doesn't matter if you have an iPhone or not)
enter details and wait for unlock code (got mine within a few hours, despite the 14 days claim)
unlock phone
go to T-Mobile store in USA and get PAYG SIM free, just add credit and get unlimited calls and text and unlmited data (200MB at 4G speed)/day for $3/day and Skype/WhatsApp everyone back home
??????
PROFIT!!!
Every time I've tried to use their website, I've run into issues )-:
So a while back, I had to re-register - and part of that was to enter my email address twice. Muppets. I pointed this out to them along with the obligatory xkcd on that subject...
So recently, after more issues with them, I had to re-register again - and again I found I had to enter my email address twice - but this time they have modified their code to not allow copy & paste. I pointed this out to them again and requested a PAC due to their incompetence - which they rejected as I'd not supplied the email address I used to register.
This is going to be a long week )-:
-G
Most customers won't notice. The vast majority never roam. They pay their £45 a month out of their dole so they have their iPhone5, but they don't actually go out of the country.
The roamers may vote with their feet and move networks, but I doubt O2 really care (except they've probably given customers the option to break their contracts with such a high change, especially if said customer has roamed in the past).
If it's the same as EE, then making a local call abroad is the same as phoning to the UK.
Incidentally, for those that don't know, EE's roaming charges are the same as these with the exception of data charges, which are even dearer at £8+ per Mb.
During my trip a couple of weeks ago I simply bought a T-Mobile PAYG SIM at O'Hare and paid pennies for all my local calls.
If you travel to Canada, Fido (a division of Rogers) do a PAYG SIM which you can drop CA$100 on to and get a year of validity on the number and the credit. Useful if you go there regularly. It's hard to top up while outside of Canada though - their web site doesn't accept non-Canadian credit cards so you have to go through a third party web site to get the credit. Hell of a lot cheaper than roaming of course.
Although, probably no more than the rest...
All my family are on O2, so, so am I. Reluctantly.
The app on my phone that they wrote to monitor my network usage still doesn't work, and this is after 8months of complaints, and I've yet to be able to send one of my "free" picture messages I pay for in my allowance (and that's after 5 visits to the shop. Well, one of them anyway. There are several very shiny ones on Princes Street), and the coverage in Scotland seems to be rather more restricted than the others - certainly outside the ring road round Edinburgh I get no G/E/3G or, heaven forbid, H, access, so I've had dust off my music player. Fortunately my maps work offline (that last work is partially redundant).
My friends all complain about their networks though, so I think it's a matter of choosing which set of fleas you get.
Unless you are dead keen to receive those adjectival messages and calls about bl**dy double glazing, PPI or other manure, you do not want to roam. You might be better of buying a PAYG SIM in country if you must make calls.
I accept that those with business needs may have to consider their options rather more carefully.
... is that you should still have to pay extra if you're in spain or germany, connected to telefonica or O2-de.
I have a 3rd party roaming card that also lets me roam with a Us cellphone no when in the US, so I'm not that bothered.
I do think the EU data allowance is still a bit mean, especially when using the same computers and a system (GSM) that's designed to allow free (physical) movement!!
It does sound like price-fixing rather than competitive pricing..
(sticking with O2 as I've managed to keep my unlimited data allowance)
Left O2 when they refused to even come close to a S3 package on Vodafone. Looking at Vodafoens pricing I hadn't realised how much more I had been paying for my O2 roaming costs (Vodafone they charge a small fee and then the rest comes out of your normal data allowance). Only thing I miss about O2 is that their data services seem to be quicker and better coverage in London.
I left O2 after many years last week.
The network going down for a second time was completely unacceptable, although retentions said "it will never happen again". Also their tariff prices are not competitive.
I also got kicked off the Euro bundle for exceeding my 25mb data limit two days in a row.
In my city (Aberdeen) O2 data is super slow, mostly GPRS or Edge. Now on Three it's HSPDA+. Wonderful!
I had forgotten they existed but then Vodafone probably pay them to keep the shops open and maintain the pretense of competition to avoid being chopped up as a monopoly.
Congrats O2, you are this decade's Mercury phone box (Mercury was kept going only due to political pressure to keep up the pretense that Tory telecomms de-regulation had provided any consumer benefit and not just made some already rich people a bit richer).
Ummmm, Increasing by 140% would take 90p to £2.16.
It's a great headline grabber to call it's increasing by 140% but it's a mathematical mess. An increase of 90p to £1.10 is a 20% increase. I guess saying the new charge will be 140% of the old cost just doesn't sound as sexy.
Paris because ...
In the not too distant future, O2 are launching O2 Connect (http://news.o2.co.uk/2011/11/02/o2-connect-making-calls-and-texts-simple/), which allows you to make calls abroad for free, using Wi-fi networks, still using your O2 number. Perhaps they're offsetting the future cost of that?
Just swapped into it.
Unlimited voice and text in the uk. 1GB of data. 1.50 a day to use this in Europe. Sounds alright to me. Very cheap.
In truth their 3G coverage is appalling and 3G over 900mhz a scam because they don't seem to be upgrading the back haul with the air link upgrade. So your phone says 3G but it still takes five minutes to load an image. Yawn.
I'm in the middle of Sussex with an indifferent 2g connection. Not even edge. I get mybroadband from 3 who have the only useable 3G signal. Too far from a Bt only exchange to bother with copper. I'd swap to 3 but their roaming packages are non existent.
O2 were great before they got the iPhone. The creaking infrastructure never came right after.
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