Following the recent EU ruling on European roaming rates, O2 UK has announced its new "O2 Travel" service, which will launch from July. The service offers reduced European roaming charges compared to the networks' current price plans, which it'll have to abolish after the July deadline imposed by the EU. Instead of paying up to £40 for up to 50MB of Euro roaming data per month, O2 Travel will now offer 25MB each day, for a daily fee of £1.99. And voice calls are becoming cheaper too, with a one-off charge of 50p per call, with minutes being deducted from the customer's allowance for that month.
Interestingly, the new O2 Travel deals will also be available to O2 Pay As You Go customers -- traditionally PAYG users have been left in the lurch when trying to use mobile data aboard. Data costs the same as it does for contract customers, but there's a slightly different price plan for voice calls -- a 29p charge per call, then 8p per minute for the call's duration.
So good news for anyone roaming in Europe on O2, and we'd expect the other major British networks to reveal new roaming plans as the July deadline approaches.
Reader comments
O2 UK reveals new European roaming plans
Its about time!!
This is good news, can't complain on saving some money.
1.99 per day is not cheaper than 40.00 per month. For someone who uses a small amount of data every day (e.g. email or messaging) this is a significant increase.
But that's £40 a month before 50MB which if you use as much as you say you do, then once you're past 50MB you're going to be paying even more to use hardly any data. If you paid the same amount on the new scheme you get 1GB for the £40.
Yes minimalists will be left paying more if they roam for a whole month, but for 60 pounds instead of 40 they can roam a LOT more. It's also only 60 if you roam every day. If you pop in and out of various countries every couple days, or don't roam much, it's cheaper.
I don't know how anyone could use a mere 50MB a month anyway...and paying 40 pounds for it is insane.