All customers with British network provider EE will now be charged daily for using their phones in France or other European Union countries.
Free roaming was a key benefit of being in the EU, allowing Britons to avoid extra charges to use their smartphones outside the UK.
But operators have been reintroducing charges in recent years.
The new changes at EE mean those on pay-as-you-go contracts will now face roaming charges.
The fees – for calling, texting, and using mobile data – will apply in 47 European countries and overseas territories, but not in the Republic of Ireland.
It means that three of the UK’s four major phone operators now have data roaming charges for customers.
Despite this, many of the smaller networks do not charge customers extra to use their phones in Europe.
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Charges for calls, texts, and web usage
The latest EE changes will see pay-as-you-go customers charged each time they use their phone to do one of three things when in Europe:
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If you plan, however, you can limit the amount of money you spend by purchasing a package.
These are available for those who have a 30-day subscription back in the UK, which allows you to pay ahead of time for calls, texts, and data usage.
You will be sent a text to let you know you can buy a package when you arrive in Europe.
If you do not have a 30-day subscription in the UK, you will be prompted to buy one to allow you to benefit from the roaming package.
If you purchase one of these packages, calls, texts, and web data will be taken out of your UK subscription, and not charged individually.
Two plans are available to purchase:
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A 24-hour plan for £2.50
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A seven-day plan for £10
Read more: Did you know? France has a team ready to defend foreigners' rights
Which companies have data roaming charges?
These changes above only apply to EE pay-as-you-go customers, however.
Other customers who have contracts with the provider have been subject to data roaming charges for more than a year, as well as most other customers on the UK’s major networks.
Below is a list of data roaming charges for the UK’s four largest network providers. Where applicable, the costs shown are those you will be charged if you buy a package (such as the EE’s plans listed above). If you do not purchase packages, you may be subject to charges for individual calls, texts and data usage, which will be much higher.
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EE
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O2
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Vodafone
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Three
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Contract customers
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£2.29/day (or £15/month)
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No charges
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£2.25/day (or £10 for 8 days or £15 for 15 days)
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£2/day
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Pay-as-you-go customers
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£2.50/day (£10 for 7 days)
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No charges
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From £7 for 8 days
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No charges
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A number of smaller network providers in the UK do not have European data roaming fees – a full list can be found here.
Most of them will have a fair-use data cap, however, which limits how much web data you can use when in Europe – going above this cap can incur large costs.
Read more: Is there a way to call French 0800 numbers from outside of France?
What can I do to limit roaming charges?
If you do have to pay roaming charges, or you are unable to purchase a roaming package, there are some things you can do to limit costs:
Always connect to WiFi where possible: To limit roaming charges for applications that connect to the internet, you can wait until you are connected to WiFi to open them. Most hotels and houses should have WiFi connections, and many public places (coffee shops, bars, train stations, and sometimes even entire cities) will have free public WiFi to connect to. When using these public WiFi connections, however, you should be cautious in what you do (such as entering your card details to purchase something online).
Using apps to place calls or send messages: You can use ‘internet-to-phone’ applications like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Skype to call or message people. Provided the person you want to contact also has the app, and you are connected to WifI, they are free to use.
Turn off data roaming: You will have the ability to turn off data roaming (which prevents your phone from connecting to internet networks but does not prevent you from receiving or sending calls and texts) in your phone’s settings. Doing this will prevent unexpected charges from your phone automatically connecting to these signals and consuming data without you even knowing. If you really need to, you can turn roaming back on to quickly connect to a network, then turn it off again when you are done.
Set a roaming charge cost cap: Most networks will already have a data cap, to prevent bills from racking up when abroad. These only apply to web data usage, however, and not calls and texts. You can set an overall spending cap for all charges combined (calls, texts, and web data) when abroad, to prevent any nasty surprises. If you hit the limit, you will be blocked from using these functions on your phone until you are back in the UK.
Download your most important things before you go: WiFi connections in public (or even in hotels) will rarely be as strong as back home, so you should download everything you think you may need onto your phone before you leave. This can include music and films for your travel or documents like boarding passes or tickets. You can also download maps in advance from Google Maps – if you know where you are going – to be able to use them when offline, whilst still using your phone’s GPS to track your live location.
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