Despite Brexits: still no roaming costs for travelers to Great Britain

Despite Brexits
Furthermore, no roaming costs for travelers to the UK

Great Britain travelers with a German mobile operator do not have to fear any roaming costs despite the Brexit.

Telefónica Deutschland (O2) and 1 & 1 Drillisch will also not charge any roaming fees at least until the end of the year if their customers in Great Britain are surfing on their mobile devices, as the companies announced at the request of the German press agency.

Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone had previously announced that they would not charge any costs for the time being. The other two competitors have now extended the scheme.

Although the UK de facto dropped out of the EU’s roaming regulation with Brexit, providers on both sides did not initially charge any additional fees for the use of mobile data in the respective foreign country. In Great Britain, several providers want to say goodbye to free roaming in the EU and introduce fees for their customers this year. Virgin Mobile and the British O2 announced at the beginning of the week, however, that they would continue to forego roaming charges.

Within the EU, the costs for roaming – i.e. mobile Internet surfing abroad – were abolished in 2017. Since then, European mobile phone users have been able to make phone calls or surf the web while on vacation largely without any worries. This also applies to consumers from Germany for the time being in the United Kingdom, even though the United Kingdom made its final break with the international community a good year ago.

Consumer advocate of the British comparison portal “Which?” Called on the UK and the EU, according to the BBC, to reach a general agreement on the subject in order to protect customers from fees in the future.

dpa