Brits who are thinking of firing on holidays have been warned that they must make simple switching before flying to avoid unnecessary daily charging. If you don't check this on your phone, it can cost you £7 a day.
You may not realize there is a risk of paying roaming fees overseas. Roaming charges are an additional charge that you incur when using your phone outside of your regular network coverage area. Often, when traveling abroad, it means that tourists are at risk of these costs.
When a mobile phone connects to another mobile network, these charges will be incurred and the provider will have to pay that network to access the service. Roaming fees may cover additional costs for calls, text, and data usage.
A recent survey by Uswitch found that the fee could be £6 (MB) per megabyte. This means that holiday makers can easily win big bills without knowing that.
And, as reported by the Sun, Ofcom warns that around 14% of UK customers have experienced careless roaming.
Luckily there are simple steps you can take to avoid hitting these fees. This includes turning off roaming permission in your phone settings.
However, this means that you cannot access mobile data services while you are out. Instead, you can only use the internet on your mobile phone if you connect to WiFi.
To prevent charges from being incurred as a shock to tourists, Ofcom has brought several changes.
All providers are obligated to notify customers when they are eligible for roaming fees while traveling.
You should also instruct your customers to provide free information that frees you of a roaming cost overview.
Prices may vary significantly. For example, in the EU, EE charges £2.47 a day for 50GB of data usage, then customers will be charged £3.60 per GB.
You will be charged £2 a day for 12GB of data usage in the EU, with additional usage being charged at £3 per £3.
Vodafone's fees, on the other hand, range from £2.42 to £7.39 a day for 25GB, depending on the location of the customer and the package they are using. Additional data will be charged for 1GB of £3.13.
Of the Big Four Providers, O2 is the only one that offers free roaming in the EU, with up to 25GB per day and additional GB charged for £3.50.
In total, there are seven networks that don't charge customers to use mobile services in the EU, but there may be usage caps.
Many networks also offer roaming packages for international travel customers.
But which one? We instructed our customers to think carefully about the amount of data they needed before signing up.
No matter what provider you provide, there are some simple things you can do to avoid unexpected invoices.
You can leave roaming off and rely on Wi-Fi services.
Wi-Fi is available at accommodation and many bars and restaurants, allowing you to decide to use your data and mobile services when you can connect while reducing your phone usage.
However, if you are planning on using apps like Uber or Google Maps, you may need to think about using your data.
One option is to buy a pay-as-you-go SIM for your trip, but don't forget to check the prices before you start using it.
Alternatively, you can purchase a local network SIM card when you arrive at your destination to take advantage of local rates.
