Travelling abroad - how to avoid roaming charges

MickandHelen

MickandHelen

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Hi all,

We are shortly to go to Europe for the first time since roaming charges were reintroduced for some Mobile companies. We are currently with Vodafone which is one of the culprits so need to think of what options we may have. We are thinking of perhaps buying a cheap Smartphone and some sort of pay as you go SIM. What are your recommendations. Thanks Mick and Helen
 
Purchase a 1PMobile sim card (Free) and you can get 14gb of data to roam with in the E.U.. purchase the 50 Gb data boost and your fair use limit will be 14 GB. You can then purchase anouther data boost after 30 days. The data boosts come in 2, 10 and 50 GB the 50 GB is cheaper than the 2 & 10 combined. Great connection too and does not have to be activated in the UK.
 
DavidG58 said:
I thought the roaming charge only applied to new contracts

We moved from Voda last year so haven’t checked them but O2 dont charge
Click to expand...
It does with most suppliers but you still get stuck with 12/15/25GB data limit so easier to buy a local sim.

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If you want a UK sim i would suggest Tesco mobile, unlimited data and no roaming charges for two months in every four, prices vary on length of contract from £25 - £35 /month. Or Carpmart has found a great deal from a Spanish provider that gives 300 gb / month at less then €40 which works in the whole of zone 1 including the UK.

www.motorhomefun.co.uk

I have a solution for good Mobile Data (300G) whilst in Spain (then any zone 1 country)

So, as with many, I’m the type of person who just ‘needs’ ubiquitous high bandwidth WiFi always available. The challenge for many this year has been with Brexit, the type of unlimited data roaming enjoyed before, is no longer available. There have been numerous topics on this for the last few...
www.motorhomefun.co.uk www.motorhomefun.co.uk
 
The deal Carpmart found, every time. Many of us are using it now and are very satisfied :) You can have the SIM posted to you in the UK and contact Camino when you want it activating :)
 
I will be getting a Lebara SIM locally then subscribing to their one month plan.

It’s €25 for 200GB and can be cancelled anytime. I use them in the UK and they have been excellent.

SIM only Details | Unlimited Calls, Data and SMS

Lebara France offers sim only deals. Get a Lebara Free prepaid SIM cards to enjoy national, international calls, sms & data. Order Sim today
mobile.lebara.com mobile.lebara.com
 
Googlebot said:
I will be getting a Lebara SIM locally then subscribing to their one month plan.

It’s €25 for 200GB and can be cancelled anytime. I use them in the UK and they have been excellent.

SIM only Details | Unlimited Calls, Data and SMS

Lebara France offers sim only deals. Get a Lebara Free prepaid SIM cards to enjoy national, international calls, sms & data. Order Sim today
mobile.lebara.com mobile.lebara.com
Click to expand...
Interesting company mission.

Our Vision​

We bring happiness to the lives of migrant communities all over the world by making their lives easier

Mission​

We make it much easier for migrant communities to stay connected to family and friends back home.

Purpose​

At Lebara, we are driven by a purpose - to care for the migrant community globally. We strive to achieve this through a mindset of collaboration and innovation.

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
RobertJary said:
Have you considered Smarty Mobile - they use the 3 network

Simple, honest mobile

SMARTY is a new SIM-only mobile network that’s built to be fair, transparent and smart.
smarty.co.uk smarty.co.uk
Click to expand...
Have you found the coverage of 3 mobile to be good? We've not had great service in France or Spain with 3 Mobile.
 
Carpmarts suggestion is prob the best option, but we didn't have time to sort it before we left, so I bought a SIM from Free yesterday in France. 210gb for €19.99 plus €10 as a one off for the SIM itself.
It lasts one month and doesn't have recurring charges, though you can top up (hopefully on line). It was Easy peasy - you just need to locate a Free outlet, we go it ours in a big L'Eclerc complex and it was dispensed by a 'vending machine'.
For the address i used the campsite road and a random house number (suggested by a member of staff) and my email address.
I'm using it in my Netgear router so we can share the connection. We even watched streaming TV last night for an hour (I am aware of the amount of data it uses) and as we are one of those who think a sat dish on the roof is a MUST now that roaming charges have been reintroduced, I won't do that all the time, though at around 1gb per hour for 6 hours per day for a month (180gb) plus 30gb for phone/internet it looks to be decent option (though the carpmart suggestion seems the best option at the moment)
it was easy to set up, I just needed to add the network as Free and add the APN as Free, but it was very simple to do.
 
My contract is with O2 and hasn’t changed. I pay no roaming charges. I see many are suggesting sims with loads of data allowance. Do you need that much data? I think my contract allows up to 20 what ever they called. I don’t think I have ever used even half of that. So don’t rush into buying something you may not need. I wouldn’t know how to use that much data.
 
glenn2926 said:
My contract is with O2 and hasn’t changed. I pay no roaming charges. I see many are suggesting sims with loads of data allowance. Do you need that much data? I think my contract allows up to 20 what ever they called. I don’t think I have ever used even half of that. So don’t rush into buying something you may not need. I wouldn’t know how to use that much data.
Click to expand...
Given you don't watch much TV you probably don't do it but a lot of folk stream TV and that eats up data like there's no tomorrow!

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There are several factors to considering when looking for data sims. They are not all equal! Yes the overall amount or Gigabytes of data you get is one consideration, the other is fundemental, what policies are employed by the operator when using the X Gigabytes in my allowance. How do they shape and control my usage.

Mobile data providers have got way smarter over the years and offer lots of ‘attractive headline’ plans with oodles (technical term) of data for low cost. Very few of these plans are without traffic shaping. Traffic control happens automatically on mobile data networks. It’s a complicated algorithm of number of subscribers on the cell, proximity to base station, propagation of signal, topographical constraints, directional or omni directional properties of the base station, what the subscriber is doing (email, browsing, streaming) etc etc… most importantly for the point I wish to make, these algorithms additionally use both fair usage and commercial filters. The latter are a combination of the plan you are on and the status (hierarchy) of your IP address with the HLR (Home Location Register).

Bringing this back to laymen terms, not all the plans we see advertised will provide you with the ability to receive the very best service you possible can at the precise moment in the cell you are in. The traffic is shaped by commercial rather than physical impediment. In other words, the type of service you are allocated based on the plan you have bought will fundamentally dictate the unfair allocation of the speed and service you enjoy.

What this means is that you can go and get a cheapie deal and be in a very uncontested cell and the algorithm doesn’t constrain you. Happy days, all is good and you can stream away. The next day is a weekend, the cell you are connected to has loads more traffic and because of your Lowly service status, the network is no longer allocating you a ‘fair’ proportion of the available bandwidth. Effectively there are more important customers than you, your service diminishes and you are no longer the happy bunny.

As with many things in life, it’s not the headline that’s important eg 300G for €40 Euros, it’s the up to 150MB download and no commercial shaping that dictates the best possible service you can receive.

I Hope this Helps to explain some of the annoying aspects of mobile data plans?
 
Carpmart said:
There are several factors to considering when looking for data sims. They are not all equal! Yes the overall amount or Gigabytes of data you get is one consideration, the other is fundemental, what policies are employed by the operator when using the X Gigabytes in my allowance. How do they shape and control my usage.

Mobile data providers have got way smarter over the years and offer lots of ‘attractive headline’ plans with oodles (technical term) of data for low cost. Very few of these plans are without traffic shaping. Traffic control happens automatically on mobile data networks. It’s a complicated algorithm of number of subscribers on the cell, proximity to base station, propagation of signal, topographical constraints, directional or omni directional properties of the base station, what the subscriber is doing (email, browsing, streaming) etc etc… most importantly for the point I wish to make, these algorithms additionally use both fair usage and commercial filters. The latter are a combination of the plan you are on and the status (hierarchy) of your IP address with the HLR (Home Location Register).

Bringing this back to laymen terms, not all the plans we see advertised will provide you with the ability to receive the very best service you possible can at the precise moment in the cell you are in. The traffic is shaped by commercial rather than physical impediment. In other words, the type of service you are allocated based on the plan you have bought will fundamentally dictate the unfair allocation of the speed and service you enjoy.

What this means is that you can go and get a cheapie deal and be in a very uncontested cell and the algorithm doesn’t constrain you. Happy days, all is good and you can stream away. The next day is a weekend, the cell you are connected to has loads more traffic and because of your Lowly service status, the network is no longer allocating you a ‘fair’ proportion of the available bandwidth. Effectively there are more important customers than you, your service diminishes and you are no longer the happy bunny.

As with many things in life, it’s not the headline that’s important eg 300G for €40 Euros, it’s the up to 150MB download and no commercial shaping that dictates the best possible service you can receive.

I Hope this Helps to explain some of the annoying aspects of mobile data plans?
Click to expand...

A perfect, succinct and easy-to-understand explanation. Once again, Carpmart rocks!! :)
 
Mattyjwr said:
Have you found the coverage of 3 mobile to be good? We've not had great service in France or Spain with 3 Mobile.
Click to expand...
Most providers will automatically connect you to their 'partner' network. If you go into manual network selection it will usually give you other options. I usually prefer Free in France and Moviestar in Spain. Only downside is that you will occasionally need to repeat the operation.
 
MisterB said:
Carpmarts suggestion is prob the best option, but we didn't have time to sort it before we left, so I bought a SIM from Free yesterday in France. 210gb for €19.99 plus €10 as a one off for the SIM itself.
It lasts one month and doesn't have recurring charges, though you can top up (hopefully on line). It was Easy peasy - you just need to locate a Free outlet, we go it ours in a big L'Eclerc complex and it was dispensed by a 'vending machine'.
For the address i used the campsite road and a random house number (suggested by a member of staff) and my email address.
I'm using it in my Netgear router so we can share the connection. We even watched streaming TV last night for an hour (I am aware of the amount of data it uses) and as we are one of those who think a sat dish on the roof is a MUST now that roaming charges have been reintroduced, I won't do that all the time, though at around 1gb per hour for 6 hours per day for a month (180gb) plus 30gb for phone/internet it looks to be decent option (though the carpmart suggestion seems the best option at the moment)
it was easy to set up, I just needed to add the network as Free and add the APN as Free, but it was very simple to do.
Click to expand...
I take it your using a vpn

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Marty Gilly and Pup said:
Interesting company mission.

Our Vision​

We bring happiness to the lives of migrant communities all over the world by making their lives easier

Mission​

We make it much easier for migrant communities to stay connected to family and friends back home.

Purpose​

At Lebara, we are driven by a purpose - to care for the migrant community globally. We strive to achieve this through a mindset of collaboration and innovation.
Click to expand...
As with every other sim card I have looked at, once you dig down into the T & C you can see there fair play usage details.
This plan like so many others looks great on the surface until you dig down into the detail. Below is a response from their live chat when I asked for more detail on their fair usage policy in the E.U.

For our bundles, you cannot use all of it, for example, the plan with 200Go you can use only 8.1Go while in the EU countries.
 
PhilandMena said:
As with every other sim card I have looked at, once you dig down into the T & C you can see there fair play usage details.
This plan like so many others looks great on the surface until you dig down into the detail. Below is a response from their live chat when I asked for more detail on their fair usage policy in the E.U.

For our bundles, you cannot use all of it, for example, the plan with 200Go you can use only 8.1Go while in the EU countries.
Click to expand...
Exactly that's why it's best to buy a local sim if you need a lot of data.
 
The Lebara is a local SIM, you just subscribe for a month and get 200GB for €25. You just need to put a random French postcode in and the rest of a UK address with a passport number as required in France.

You just buy a basic pay as you go Lebara SIM locally then subscribe, done.

PhilandMena said:
As with every other sim card I have looked at, once you dig down into the T & C you can see there fair play usage details.
This plan like so many others looks great on the surface until you dig down into the detail. Below is a response from their live chat when I asked for more detail on their fair usage policy in the E.U.

For our bundles, you cannot use all of it, for example, the plan with 200Go you can use only 8.1Go while in the EU countries.
Click to expand...

Lenny HB said:
Exactly that's why it's best to buy a local sim if you need a lot of data.
Click to expand...
 
Another vote for Tesco with no roaming charges but go sim only. However you should buy your phone unlocked outright, not get a phone deal. Ten quid a month for the sim which works out 300 quid cheaper over 24 months.

Bear in mind, O2 have been saying that they are the only major network to not implement roaming charges. Key word is MAJOR. Several smaller networks have also not brought in roaming charges, but i think they all use the O2 cellular system.

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DDJC said:
Another vote for Tesco with no roaming charges but go sim only. However you should buy your phone unlocked outright, not get a phone deal. Ten quid a month for the sim which works out 300 quid cheaper over 24 months.

Bear in mind, O2 have been saying that they are the only major network to not implement roaming charges. Key word is MAJOR. Several smaller networks have also not brought in roaming charges, but i think they all use the O2 cellular system.
Click to expand...

The problem with this is that, if you need a decent amount of data while roaming, it's not the charges that are an issue; it's the roaming cap. For a lot of people, no roaming charges is useless if the data is capped at 12gb.
 
HKF said:
The problem with this is that, if you need a decent amount of data while roaming, it's not the charges that are an issue; it's the roaming cap. For a lot of people, no roaming charges is useless if the data is capped at 12gb.
Click to expand...
Tesco mobile have no data cap in EU.
 
Googlebot said:
The Lebara is a local SIM, you just subscribe for a month and get 200GB for €25. You just need to put a random French postcode in and the rest of a UK address with a passport number as required in France.

You just buy a basic pay as you go Lebara SIM locally then subscribe, done.
Click to expand...
Are you saying you need to purchase two sims? one in the UK and another for the country you are visiting.
 
Thanks everyone, Lots of options. Local Sim seems to be the easiest.
 
Bolti said:
Are you saying you need to purchase two sims? one in the UK and another for the country you are visiting.
Click to expand...
Yes, I am afraid so. Otherwise you are capped.

You just activate renewal and de activate as required.

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