Three Becomes Latest UK Mobile Operator to Bring Back EU Roaming Charges

[karranz]

Good job, making life easier for your customers. Glady (EU) we can travel everywhere without worrying about roaming fees.

 

[User 6502]

The EU is a failed socialist club, with Holland, Italy & Greece (both bankrupt economies), Denmark, Poland and Hungary thinking about leaving as well. UK taxpayers paid £14 billion pa, a loss of £14 billion pa, for this club with zero benefits (apart from straight cucumbers). You really don't need the Internet for anything whilst on holiday, you can still get it with free wifi. It was an idea I originally thought would be good to compete with the USA, until I found out how it is funded, and how flawed it is. You do know EU bureaucrats don't pay a penny in tax? VAT rates vary in every country, laws varies in every country, incomes vary in every country, China & Japan weren't superpowers back then. The EU has failed in everything. Poverty still exists and is growing in most EU countries. So what is the point of the EU? Leaving was the best decision and will be proven, as the EU can't carry on with Diane Abbotts maths or economic policies. Don't forget the UK nearly went bust in 1976, just 2 years after joining the nirvana the EU was promised to be. One disaster after another.

Don’t know about the other countries you listed but Italy is not thinking about leaving at all. There is not even one political party left advocating that, even the most euro skeptic ones (that represent a minority) don’t push for that but just for some changes in rules but still staying within the eu.

 

[t0pher]

We're going to look back in 20 years time and wonder why we allowed ourselves to lose so much…

That’s 1 view.
I prefer to look at the new opportunities we have with the rest of the world including the former and current commonwealth nations who have struggled since we joined the EU.

nothing stopping future agreements restoring these things without us being governed by the EU.

 

[211]

The EU is a failed socialist club, with Holland, Italy & Greece (both bankrupt economies), Denmark, Poland and Hungary thinking about leaving as well. UK taxpayers paid £14 billion pa, a loss of £14 billion pa, for this club with zero benefits (apart from straight cucumbers). You really don't need the Internet for anything whilst on holiday, you can still get it with free wifi. It was an idea I originally thought would be good to compete with the USA, until I found out how it is funded, and how flawed it is. You do know EU bureaucrats don't pay a penny in tax? VAT rates vary in every country, laws varies in every country, incomes vary in every country, China & Japan weren't superpowers back then. The EU has failed in everything. Poverty still exists and is growing in most EU countries. So what is the point of the EU? Leaving was the best decision and will be proven, as the EU can't carry on with Diane Abbotts maths or economic policies. Don't forget the UK nearly went bust in 1976, just 2 years after joining the nirvana the EU was promised to be. One disaster after another.

I can't believe 6 years later people like you are still peddling lies. You have already been disproven by other people here, but as for zero benefits, you posted in a story about 3 reintroducing roaming charges, when that wasn't allowed when we were in the EU. As for your alternatives to going online, we didn't have to think of this before. Workarounds to things we have lost is not a benefit to Brexit. As for corrupt politicians, poverty, etc. has that changed? You think British politicians are not corrupt or inept? Do you deliberately ignore daily news articles about this? Has poverty now ended in the UK? The fact that you mention Diane Abbott's mistake from years ago but ignore people in the current government's numerous daily mistakes (including Priti Patel's problems with numbers) says it all. I'm surprised you haven't mentioned Jeremy Corbyn or Labour government from over a decade ago.

It is interesting that you haven't mentioned a single benefit to Brexit.

 

[iPadified]

The EU is a failed socialist club, with Holland, Italy & Greece (both bankrupt economies), Denmark, Poland and Hungary thinking about leaving as well. UK taxpayers paid £14 billion pa, a loss of £14 billion pa, for this club with zero benefits (apart from straight cucumbers). You really don't need the Internet for anything whilst on holiday, you can still get it with free wifi. It was an idea I originally thought would be good to compete with the USA, until I found out how it is funded, and how flawed it is. You do know EU bureaucrats don't pay a penny in tax? VAT rates vary in every country, laws varies in every country, incomes vary in every country, China & Japan weren't superpowers back then. The EU has failed in everything. Poverty still exists and is growing in most EU countries. So what is the point of the EU? Leaving was the best decision and will be proven, as the EU can't carry on with Diane Abbotts maths or economic policies. Don't forget the UK nearly went bust in 1976, just 2 years after joining the nirvana the EU was promised to be. One disaster after another.

EU has a liberal agenda and not a socialist one. Ask anyone on the left wing what they think about EU.

EU is considering kicking Poland and Hungary out because the break certain rules like the independence of courts and normal human rights for HBQT community.

Denmark is not considering leaving EU. It has been very silent on that front since UK left.

With these clear error, I wonder how many more you have done in your text.

 

[2ilent8cho]

and how many years did the EU drag its feet to even get it to the point of having free roaming across the EU nations? 15/20 years? It was not there in the 90s or early 00s .

I'm still struggling to understand why the EU think it should have ever been free anyway. I am on EE in the UK, why should I be entitled to use another network, owned by another company, in another country for free? I have to pay extra to use say Sprint when I'm in New York.

But its hard to understand EU logic most the time anyway, just look at the stupid cookie pop-up windows on every website you visit, which everyone just clicks I accept on anyway.... yeah great idea EU lets just make the web a bad experience for every human on earth, nice one!.

 

[User 6502]

Maybe vaccine rollout? Without being in the EU the UK could approve the vaccine quicker (I think, not 100% sure) certainly not a benefit drew up when the country voted to leave in 2016 though

You mean approving quicker a less effective vaccine that had more side effects. Yeah great. And despite that in many major European countries there is now a higher vaccination rate than in the U.K., so thanks to the European vaccination programme they managed to vaccinate more people than the U.K. and with better vaccines. To name a few: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark… but the list goes on.

 

[dca100]

Project Fear is now Project Reality.

And that, regrettably, sums up the whole shambles.

• Roaming fees re-introduced
• Border (effectively) imposed down the Irish Sea
• Able to catch more fish but unable to sell them
• Labour shortages throughout the economy thanks to the loss of thousands of EU workers (Truck Drivers, Nurses, Food Production workers to name but a few)
• Less ability to prevent illegal immigration (look up what Dublin III means - of which we are no longer part)
• Loss of security (believe me, we do not have the same access to shared intelligence databases that we once did)
• Vast extra red tape for logistics
• Damage to the City of London. Billions of £ of business lost to EU that won't be back. Thousands of high-tax-paying jobs lost as a result
• Energy prices going through the roof

And that barely scratches the surface of what people claimed was 'Project Fear' and wouldn't happen.
Meanwhile trade deals with the rest of the world have yet to materialise. Those that are in progress seem likely to be worse for us (lower standards, more local competition) than the one we had with the EU.

And of course, if we want to sell our goods to EU countries (still our biggest export market by far, and always will be) we have to follow EU standards anyway - just without any control over what those standards are. Pre-Brexit we could shape them or veto them at will.

 

[t0pher]

Well we have food shortages, so we are saving money as we can’t buy as much and oh yes now we are saving a bit more money as we can’t buy anything they are hiking up the costs of everything so we are pooper than before.

Food shortages due to a lack of lorry drivers which is something that is also a problem in Europe and the USA.
My Waitrose delivery driver has just quit to be an hub driver as he’d get paid far more due to the driver shortage. It’s not Brexit but a global shortage especially when average age of a driver is 50+ & older drivers are retiring.

 

[chucker23n1]

Can anybody tell me what's the big deal here? Thanks to eSIM, there are so many international plans for travelers. And what's so hard putting a local SIM in to avoid roaming charges? With services like whatsapp and other messaging services, I don't see issues of missing contacts while roaming.

This is true, but UK citizens will face more deregulation like this, and it won't be fun for them.

Also, if there's a healthy competition between the carriers,

Yes, well, there is not. The cost of setting up a cellular carrier is far too high for healthy competition. As a result, there are only four actual networks in the UK, and that's just nowhere near enough to actually drive down prices.

Maybe vaccine rollout? Without being in the EU the UK could approve the vaccine quicker (I think, not 100% sure) certainly not a benefit drew up when the country voted to leave in 2016 though

The UK vaccine rollout did start out better than the EU, for several reasons, but by now, they have largely squandered their headstart; the EU, on average, is doing just as well.

And on other metrics such as cases, the UK really isn't doing too hot.

 

[211]

No one will regret Brexit, a once in a generation, indeed once in a lifetime decision, because of the existence or otherwise of roaming charges. It does go to show, however, that companies are pretty greedy and that networks that have had to pay billions for licensing 5G bandwidth are doing everything to claw back their investments, not least due to falling revenues from SMS and competition from over-the-top services offered by Google, Apple et al.

I'm in the mobile industry so I've got some insight here. Remember that a lot of UK networks are actually corporately tied in various ways to networks on the continent and there is no real extra cost on them from roaming that they couldn't easily absorb. Brexit doesn't actually impose any big cost on the networks: they are just using this as an excuse to boost revenues. I suspect legislation will come in at some point to impose restrictions on roaming charges.

And you can tell hardcore Remainers, or Remoaners as they are commonly called, when they start arguing in favour of Remain in very one-sided terms, despite the democratically held decision being made by the British people, under no duress whatsoever, back in 2016! Time to move on.

It certainly amuses me how the Remainers aren't apoplectic about, say, Switzerland or Norway not being part of the EU. They also forget that we are still tied to the EU, through the Withdrawal Agreement and other frameworks. We did not cut ourselves adrift from the rest of Europe! This is a myth. Have a look, for example, at the closeness of Franco-British cooperation, which is very extensive. Let us calm down.

The fact that you mention Remainers means that there are people who regret Brexit.

As for Switzerland and Norway, they are more tied to the EU than UK. The Withdrawal Agreement was the worst agreed, making sure our ties with the EU are as limited as possible, so unlike Switzerland and Norway. As for legislation to stop UK networks charging for roaming, why didn't that happen from day 1? As for democracy, do you think every decision made democratically is the right one? President Donald Trump and the Nazi Party were elected democratically.

 

[yellowbunny]

At least we got that 350 million a week for the NHS

 

[FrietVanPiet]

The EU is a failed socialist club, with Holland, Italy & Greece (both bankrupt economies), Denmark, Poland and Hungary thinking about leaving as well.

That's simply false information. Of course some individual people are thinking about that, but majority isn't.

 

[t0pher]

You mean approving quicker a less effective vaccine that had more side effects. Yeah great. And despite that in many major European countries there is now a higher vaccination rate than in the U.K., so thanks to the European vaccination programme they managed to vaccinate more people than the U.K. and with better vaccines. To name a few: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark… but the list goes on.

Don’t forget the major EU member countries governments trashed the AZ vaccine and the EU took AZ to court insisting AZ divert supplies of a vaccine EU leaders where talking bad about and EU citizens didn’t want, again because their elected officials where down talking it. The knock on was third world countries didn’t want AZ either as European leaders said it was bad, which slowed global adoption and people died because the EU where discouraging AZ while suing them to deliver them more from another nation who where encouraging adoption.

also the EU erected a border in Ireland without telling the Irish or uk governments, purely to stop cv19 vaccines getting into the uk.

im glad we are out of that mess.

 

[diddl14]

And remains the only operator in Austria that doesn't support Apple Watch...

 

[danny842003]

We're going to look back in 20 years time and wonder why we allowed ourselves to lose so much…

Yes having the same roaming situation with another 20 off countries as the rest of the world is such a loss.

 

[211]

and how many years did the EU drag its feet to even get it to the point of having free roaming across the EU nations? 15/20 years? It was not there in the 90s or early 00s .

I'm still struggling to understand why the EU think it should have ever been free anyway. I am on EE in the UK, why should I be entitled to use another network, owned by another company, in another country for free? I have to pay extra to use say Sprint when I'm in New York.

But its hard to understand EU logic most the time anyway, just look at the stupid cookie pop-up windows on every website you visit, which everyone just clicks I accept on anyway.... yeah great idea EU lets just make the web a bad experience for every human on earth, nice one!.

So you want to be charged extra for roaming? Does it matter how long it took the EU to stop roaming? At least it happened. The logic is to stop customers being ripped off from the exorbitant charges. The US is not in the EU, so EU can't impose any restrictions on them.

As for cookies, this was again with consumers in mind, so that they have more control over their privacy. The way this has been implemented by 99% of websites is wrong. The EU legislation on this is too long to read, but the ICO has summed it up better. The EU acknowledges that the way websites are doing cookie preferences are not what was intended, so it is revising legislature to make it better for consumers.

 

[dave559]

Laws vary between Scotland and England, as does tax. The only thing we pay the same is VAT, at least for now.

And, equally well, many laws and taxes also vary between the different states of the USA as well, and you don't see many frog-faced spivs over there complaining about wanting to leave that particular union.

The bizarre thing is that many Bwrecksiters just lurve the USA [1] (and, presumably, by implication, its federal structure) but hate the similar/comparable EU (also a federal structure, where member states naturally retain full control over everything that they haven't mutually agreed to co-operate together over, how dare people get on and work together?!).

[1] Well, they think they do, but when they discover what the lack of a National Health Service, workers rights, etc, means, they might have second thoughts…

 

[TVOR]

I can't believe that there are some people that would make political decisions which have the potential to impact multiple areas of their life on the basis of a £2 per day (TWO!!!) roaming charge for a holiday which - even though you can't actually take one freely any more - would probably have cost you hundreds if not thousands of pounds for a week or ten days! You are seriously concerned about an extra £15 or £20 cost on a multiple hundreds or thousands of pounds holiday???

 

[laptech]

Every UK company that lost money due to the EU's interference in their business will re-introduce what was taken away from them by the EU. Mobile phone companies re-introducing roaming charges is only the start of it.

 

[ashdelacroix]

The UK is the oldest modern nation state on earth and the Conservatives the oldest political party on earth. I think we'll cope! The problems we all face are largely global ones. Globalisation and global connectivity have broken the traditional bonds between people and state. There are huge generational issues between the values of most people and the young and/or identitarian Left. People identify less with their immediate and literal neighbours and more with cohorts of likeminded people thousands of miles away. We are facing energy crises, environmental issues, and a West that will need to compete ever-more with a rising East, not to mention a recalcitrant and meddling Russia and China, which are both determined to infiltrate the levers of Western democracy by manipulating our social, corporate and eduction networks. We will face migratory issues at a scale that will be breathtaking, not least from Africa in the coming years, possibly in to the millions, putting huge cultural and infrastructure strain on Europe. Brexit, in this sense, is a very local issue. We have far bigger problems that we need to face together, whether we are from the UK, USA, France, Germany etc. The whole Western liberal democratic tradition is in existential crisis and we should stop navel-gazing and be vigilant. I am resistant to doom-mongering, but I think we really do have an authentic crisis looming.

 

[pelowj]

Also the EU erected a border in Ireland without telling the Irish or uk governments

Wow. What a total misrepresentation of what happened. The mention of Article 16 made its way into a Commission document as part of after hours edits to a draft document. It was never actioned; it was never implemented.

And just to get another thing clear: the British erected that border in Ireland. It is the legacy of a 400 year old ethnic cleansing project still being resolutely implemented and supported by the British government.

 

[mjs916]

I look forward to the day we rejoin the EU and things can get back to normality with no roaming charges.

Careful wishing for “normality”. Here in the USA I’m told we’re experiencing a “return to normalcy” because some guy in a suit is the guy in a suit.

Regarding roaming fees. It would’ve cost $10 per day for me to roam in Europe with Verizon so £2 a day doesn’t sound that bad comparatively. I just downloaded a map (HERE We Go Maps) and made do with WiFi when I had it. After a few hours, muscle memory of a world without constant connectivity kicked in.

This does seem like a step backward though. I’m not certain where they are incurring any additional cost to actually need to charge more 🤷🏽‍♂️

 

[BvizioN]

Can anyone tell me any actual benefit that we (the UK) has from leaving the EU? Because I am struggling to see any.

Taking full control of the borders (as in the video below)

 

[rmoliv]

That’s why I’ll never set foot in the UK anymore. Every other EU national do the same and they’ll be begging to rejoin.