back to article O2 admits to throttling network bandwidth for EU data roamers

O2 has admitted to deliberately throttling its network as a "temporary measure" to combat the demand of Brits using free data roaming abroad. The issue was first pointed out by a punter in the UK mobile network's support forum, who noted that within a month of the EU abolishing roaming charges on June 15, he was unable to use …

  1. adamtemp64
    FAIL

    In breach of the eu roam like home regs as stated in the linked o2 community thread

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How long have they known this was happening, again?

      Dear o2,

      It seems a pretty feeble excuse, given you have known for quite a few years now, this was happening.

      I'd personally, like to see you fined. And fined BIG.

      Yours,

      o2 Customer.

    2. therealmav

      In breach of.....

      Not in my experience, O2 performance is like this a lot of the time here in the UK. No need to go to Dublin to be disappointed with O2 data rates

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      It's like home!

      O2 has an internal policy of throttling and prioritizing even within the UK - this is not publicised but exists as an open secret. The priority would be like: 1) O2 business monthly contracts, 2) O2 personal monthly contracts, 3) O2 PAYG, 4) Giffgaff, 5) Other MVNOs using the O2 network.

      They throttle, kick lower priority users out of busy masts (in an orderly manner from the bottom, depending on the traffic), drop calls abruptly, etc.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's a shame we don't any previous years to reference whether when this was a separate paid for service they had problems.

    Though when you think about it throttling the service without any other option is not going to put in you high customer regard when they come to renew their contract before next year.

    I don't think someone at O2 has thought this through.

    1. Goldmember

      Last year, I used paid-for O2 roaming in Greece, Netherlands, Czechia and Italy, all with no problems. I didn't always have 4G, but there was no noticeable throttling of speed.

      Funny, eh?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Heh, of course they've thought about it - They've thought "How do we get everyone taking advantage of roaming to take their business elsewhere and stop costing us money?"

  3. James 51

    Glad I am sticking with Three for the moment. I have noticed that it is slower when I go abroad but I don't know if that is Three, their partner or just crappy networks.

    1. Prosthetic Conscience
      Thumb Down

      It's 3

      Whatever partnership they do with local providers it's always throttled but more skillfully than O2, for example they figure out when you stream something and throttle that more aggressively than loading pages, sometimes you can barely stream 128kbps internet radio. I've seen that in NL, DE, BG, ES, AT

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. ChrisAylen

      It's the same with Three

      Interestingly enough, I find that Three is just as bad both in the EU and elsewhere. During a stay in Lanzarote I was getting similar speeds to the OP, but when running a speed test on a popular speed testing site, I got over 10 Mbs. Go figure.

  4. bazza Silver badge

    Dunno about tethering. Three don't (didn't) support tethering whilst roaming at all, they won't even sell it as an add on.

    Is this some fundamental technology limitation in the telecoms standards, or is this just Three being skin flints?

    1. frank ly

      Tethering is a function of your phone, not the mobile network. They are being skinflints.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Tethering

      Just them being skin flints in a effort to restrict the amount of data you use when roaming.

    3. werdsmith Silver badge

      Three "Feel At Home" was good value while I was in USA, but was limited to no LTE.

      1. Michael Jennings

        Yeah, that part was annoying. When I went to the US last year, I took a phone that could handle most US 4G frequencies, and I could *see* the 4G networks when I went looking for them, but just couldn't connect to them. On the other hand, the 3G coverage I got was generally fine, and it is great that free roaming to the US is being offered by someone, so I am not going to complain much.

    4. James 51

      No limitation, just the commerical agreement between Three and the other company. It's annoying but I guess it does keep their prices low.

    5. IsJustabloke
      Thumb Down

      "is this just Three being skin flints"

      I'm not sure that is a charge you can level at Three... they included as standard 4G while every other network was charging extra and they've had "feel at Home" as a no cost extra long before it was mandated , not to mention they have it in many more countries than just the EU

      The no tethering is more likely to be a restriction placed on them by their partners

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Three Feel At Home..

      I sign up to 3, for 2 important reasons.. Unlimited data and ability roam freely in a lot of countries. But they are very aggressive when it comes to throttling and bandwidth shaping - VPN's are practically unuseable and streaming of any kinda is useless.

      Saying that, they have recently changed their plans to include a certain amount of Tethering, also I hope the new EU rules and competition will force a change on this..

      1. rssfed23

        Re: Three Feel At Home..

        I travel around Europe a lot for work and noticed the day the EU regs came in three changed their info pages and now describe feel at home as a different service to the non eu countries they allow roaming in (can’t remember the name off the top of my head).

        They also allow 4g and tethering now (think there’s a tethering cap) along witn vpn use. It’s an amazing improvement on what we had previously where only social media ran well and id get 0.2mbits max on any other website.

        I’m tethering right now in Nuremberg to my iPad watching Netflix with no problem. Got 20Mbits earlier on for a speed test as well. It’s not as perfect or reliable as in the uk but a darn sight better than the feel at home (if all you use at home is social media) that we had before!

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re. tethering

      three don't allow it on certain plans, like pay as you go, and, having read some speculation on various forums, it also has something to do with phone's OS, i.e. as some people using iphones reported tethering worked fine (there was some semi-insider inforation provided on the subject too). While tethering did work for me, on several occassions, it was promptly detected, and it appears their system blocks it for my number completely. So, I found a solution: I use a local pay as you go card and three get nil from me, when I'm abroad.

  5. charlieboywoof
    FAIL

    You know whats next?

    Across the board (see what I did there) price rises

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. SorenUK

    Have just been in Denmark 2 weeks ago - and was surprised that my wife (who uses GiffGaff) could get a 4G connection and great speeds - where as I (who use O2) could not get a 4G connection and had a very slow connection - EVEN THOUGH we both connected to the same mobile network in Denmark.

    At least now I now why! Shame on you O2!!

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      It's even funnier when you reallise that GiffGaff run on O2's infrastructure....

      1. Ol' Grumpy

        "It's even funnier when you reallise that GiffGaff run on O2's infrastructure...."

        I don't know what it is like now as I have moved away but I was rarely seeing over 0.5Mbps with a 4G signal at home, let alone abroad with Giff Gaff. My experience was similar to that described in the article, where it would start high and immediately dip to between 1.0 and 0.5Mbps as the throttling kicked in.

        I moved to BT Mobile in the end. I hate myself for doing it as I liked the GiffGaff concept and ethos but I can't complain about the BT/EE 4G throughput.

  8. IsJustabloke
    Facepalm

    You could see the phone trying its hardest

    What?!?!

    Was his phone sweating? Was it pulling a face like it was squeezing one out?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: You could see the phone trying its hardest

      It dropped it's battery load.

  9. djstardust

    As poor as Vodafone are

    In the UK, their roaming has been excellent. since I left Three (for traffic shaping) Vodafone have been excellent in France, Spain and Italy.

    I'm going to Spain again in a couple of weeks so it will be interesting to see if there have been any changes.

    Ironically Three used to throttle their data on feel at home but apparently now it's better.

    1. IsJustabloke
      Meh

      Re: As poor as Vodafone are

      I've used Three in the US, New Zealand, Hong Kong as well as Europe and I've never had any kind of problem. There's certainly been no obvious throttling but then I was just using it for google, maps, navigation and email.

    2. Spanker

      Re: As poor as Vodafone are

      Same for me, southern Sardinia I tested 42/34mbs on Vodafone 4G roaming...

    3. Adam 52 Silver badge

      Re: As poor as Vodafone are

      Hmm. My Mrs is on Vodafone. Last week across rural France, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy I (on Three) was consistently was able to get better performance and more network choice than she was.

      That, and Vodafone's atrocious customer service and poor coverage in our local is why she'll be leaving at the end of her contract.

  10. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Whenever I've taken my O2 phone to France, it has never got 4G, always 3G. I haven't been yet since the EU roaming rule came into play. Not impressed with these reports.

    On a separate note, my son took his o2 phone to a music festival near Reading (Truckfest), google's find my phone feature said he was in Glastonbury (yes, he lost his phone, but luckily someone found it and handed it in). Needless to say, data services didn't work at all for the three days he was there.

    1. cbars Bronze badge

      The Glastonbury thing will be because the festivals set up their own masts. When you dial 999 at Glastonbury you get directed to a dedicated call centre on site so they can get to you. It's not much good dispatching an Ambulance from a little village for someone passed out next to Main stage.

      Truckfest was probably using the same kit/company and Google's metadata hadn't updated that the Mast Ids had moved (probably more people at Glasto weighting the algorithms)

      That is just a guess :)

      1. D@v3

        Glastonbury

        I (on O2) found i had lots of 4G bars, but poor signal, worked better when it dropped to 3G (eventually turned 4G off). My girlfriend on EE had good bars and signal all weekend. No surprise that one of the 'partners' for the festival is EE.

        Actually found much the same when I went to see Tom Petty in Hyde Park with my mum (also on EE) seems that O2 don't like big crowds of people.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Glastonbury

          I have a box of quality chocolate bars (way more than 3) but my signal is still shit.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tethering workaround.

    Set your SSH at home to listen on port 53, tunnel over port 53, voila.*

    Worked on GiffGaff when I last used them. I could tunnel through 53 and my bandwidth usage wouldn't budge when tethered and tunneled.

    *Yes yes port forwarding, routers blah blah. We're all engineers here.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Tethering workaround.

      Hrmmm. Have you filed your TPS report already?

      With the correct cover?

      Don't worry I'll make sure you get the right memo with it.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Vodafone are up to the same trick ?

    March 17 in Spain on a Vodafone contract with added EU data, 4g and fast as you like. Now, changed to large data contract with out an EU data add on. Spain end of June, exactly the same place, throttled to death, useless until after midnight where it seems to free its self up. No way to stream anything. Im going again tomorrow, will see if its changed for the better...

  13. Disgruntled of TW
    Facepalm

    Mobile operators ...

    ... reaping the contempt they deserve. No surprise here. I've moved from Voda, to O2, to T-Mobile, to Voda, to Three to EE. All equally poor. I pick the least evil, and most reliable, as customer services with all of them is a time sink with no benefit.

    We were all supposed to be watching TV on our phones on the train, when 3G arrived - remember?

    I simply no longer trust the operators and ignore their advertising.

    1. Zmodem

      Re: Mobile operators ...

      its easier to just stop caring about the internet, and stick to 5 useless websites, and don't bother with the rest and laugh at government trying to get companies to invest in the shittie country

  14. jahill

    I'm pretty sure that this has been going on for a while and became much worse once free roaming started being offered. I've tried using Three and Vodafone abroad with connection speeds often as low as a few 100kB's.

    The first few of web pages usually work fine, beyond which it's like swimming through treacle. Switch to another device and all is fine, until you hit the throttling again. It's not consistently bad, but when it's bad, it's very, very bad.

  15. Zmodem

    t-mobile uk is just as crap, i have been getting 10Mbps on 3g 24/7 for months, now its capped at 60Kbps, which is pointless, so you make sure you just keep retrying to hog a connection until something works, even useless 144p youtube video's

  16. samdoory
    Meh

    o2 - uk

    hi there,

    i am are german o2 costumer. i was from 19.07 to 26.07 in london / essex for holiday there, My phone has automatically entered into the o2 - uk, when i want to use the internet, was very very slow and i dont can use the 4G network. so i change manuel to EE network, then i can use the 4G network and all was perfect.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: o2 - uk

      Mr Fawlty would approve.

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