Oh no, EE! More UK mobile customers face sluggish roaming abroad EE customers not on the firm's top-end data tariff have complained they are receiving sloth-like speeds of 2Mbps when using data abroad. On its Free EU Roaming support page, EE said: "4GEE Max customers will get our fastest available speeds at home and abroad. But please note: maximum speeds will be dependent on the local …
Fair enough but on the other hand I don't see why these firms should be allowed to get away with breaking the law.
Incidentally using a phone from a EU country in the UK isn't a brilliant experience along from Dorset to Cornwall... mind you locals tell me that it's no better with a UK SIM card, they just get crap service.
The problem is I'd imagine that because this was forced on them they
a) didn't think it would happen
b) didn't want it to happen when it's been such a nice little earner
C) didn't allow themselves enough time to be able to negotiate decent deals
So I imagine at some point the EU powers will step in (because I can't imagine it's only the UK networks playing this silly game of just about complying with the rules) and tell them all to behave. They don't seem to learn, if they had played nicely they wouldnt have had this forced on them. But they still aren't playing nicely so I imagine they will be forced to play fair by next summer. I'd also put money on three seeing a marketing opportunity to get 4g out there and advertise the "fastest abroad" campaign quicker than that. EE being part of BT will drag their feet with most resistance like the rest of their business offerings.
Well, here I am in a founder-member EU country, just having returned from France and Switzerland. 4G roaming everywhere. Well, except where unavailable, like tunnels through the alps (where one can still make 2G phone calls). No sneaky out-of-plan charges either. So maybe this pettiness is just a UK thing.
"WTF?" Maybe you haven't thought about all use cases for mobile roaming... it's not all selfies and being glued to Facebook... some of us have businesses to run. I run a small business, and have to have remote access to my customer's servers at any time day or night... I wasn't "Nexflixing by the pool" - I was trying to stay connected
4G on Three's "feel at home" has never been included but other than that it's as speedy as it can be.(I've used it without a problem in New Zealand, Hong Kong and the US)
It's just the usual suspects taking the piss... EE, Vodashite and O2. So no, you won't be live streaming your mate's Mediterranean wedding to the rest of the UK.
I've never had a major issue with using my '3' phone abroad especially in the USA. There again, I don't stream stuff using my phone when I'm here so why should I feel the need to do that when overseas but that is just me I guess.
Everything I wanted to work basically worked just a little bit slower than if I was in Central London.
Booking hotels from a Truck Stop on I-80 in the middle of Northern Nevada was not a problem and for around £12/month it is a bargain especially when compared to US 'calling plans'.
I've looked up where I and a couple of thousand people are going to a week long event next year. It's not in the arse end of nowhere, only just off the A1(M) but EE's coverage is listed as:-
2G - With a fair wind you should be able speak to someone and get a text
3G - Ha Ha Ha ha Ha. Just No. Now bugger off
4G - We'll give you 1 bar signal standing outside if we feel like it
Well, EE has tooted its horn about temporarily increased coverage for Glastonbury this year. If you can fight your way through the flacks, you or your event's organisers might be able to get them to do something similar for you.
There’s a lot of info about the Glastonbury deployment here:
https://youtu.be/yALIMIeZ67o
Depending on your level of desire for mucho technical info, this is a good watch.
Integration down to delivering 999 calls from mobiles attached to the temporary cells to on site medics for faster responses.
Here we usually enjoy free roaming, but often at 1xRTT or HSDPA speeds, and very limited MB. Sprint for it's part have LTE roaming agreements here and there...but you really have to have zero home signal before you can gain access to any of it. It is a fact though, that free roaming is not free, and the cost is built into your monthly rates. If we want all we can eat on any network, it seems...we will pay for it despite any assurances of "free roaming." It should have been recognized by the EU that there still ain't no free lunch, and you cannot legislate it. Somebody is going to pay regardless.
Just came back to my home country of Austria after visiting Italy, Slovenia and Croatia - with a cheap as chips PTG "packetized" to something resembling a contract. No 4G apart from Italy (no surprise here, none deployed) but speeds better than when falling back to 3G at home.
I may have missed a few holes though - a total of something like 30mins over 2 weeks must be enough for a vacation. If you don't insist on posting every piece of gorgous local food instead of enjoying it, that is.
I was going to wax lyrical about Vodafone being awesome across the water. But I'm currently on my way back from a there-and-back London-Paris today to oversee various crap beIng installed and set up in our Paris office, and I couldn't get fuck all. Couldn't even get vpn to frigging connect on my laptop.. So without a decent email machine, and I've been off chat, and I'm now going to walk into a shit storm in the office tomorrow as I've not been able to communicate what's been going on or keep on top of otherwise.
I have corp email on an iPhone, but that's on voda as well so even that was sporadic at best. Anyway all it's good for is seeing that some shit is going down and not being able to see what's actually going on or respond quickly.
So more fool me for relying on Vodafone to provide a service. No Nic port on my dell 5510 without a dongle or docker. Vpn over wifi or nuffin. And all I got was a big fat nuffin.
I am very pissed off. Carriers I kept hopping between were orange F and SNF. No Voda coverage at all and they've effectively cut my roaming budget down from 20gig with my uk allowance to 4gig roaming. I can burn a gig a day just being hooked up to vpn. Anyway just my expirence
Just got back from a holiday on the Isle Of Man, first time trying out this free roaming malarky.
Tablet, phone and wireless router all roamed on Sure, which has just launched there. EE sent a 'Welcome to Guernsey' SMS, which got giggles from all the EE users on the ferry.
EE roamed onto the 4G network, Three got HSPA+. No problem with speed off either, but I wasn't exactly hammering it. It all just worked, apart from the router that took about 5 minutes to register itself the first time.
"our standard roaming data speeds when in the EU. This is likely to be slower than in the UK and fast enough to use your phone as you normally would, including streaming music and standard definition video (or better)."
Sounds like they are saying that "standard data speed is not "top data speed" which is obvious if there is a premium product you are not paying for.
When I was looking at a new contract earlier in the year I was keen to find out what the roaming was like in the context of charges. EE said that they didn't charge if I went with the Max Plan can't remember the cost but it was at a premium to other plans. It came with a ridiculous amount of data and I also needed to buy a new phone with them which I didn't need (and doubtless contributed to the cost). Didn't fancy that.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
