EE to bring back Europe roaming charges after Brexit
EE will reintroduce additional roaming charges for customers who use their phones in Europe from next year, despite promises not to hike fees after Brexit.
Users will be charged a new flat fee of £2 a day when roaming across 47 European destinations, which will cover their plan’s data, minutes and texts allowance.
The changes will be made to contracts for new and upgrading customers from 7 July, but the charge will not be applied until January 2022.
UK customers will not be charged extra to use their phones in Northern Ireland, however.
In January all four UK mobile networks – EE, O2, Three and Vodafone – said they had no plans to reintroduce fees despite being unshackled from EU laws that ban roaming charges in other countries in the bloc.
But EE, which is owned by BT, today said it was introducing the fees to support investment in its network.
It comes after O2 introduced a data cap of 25GB for pay monthly customers, after which point users will have to pay £3.50 per GB when using their phone in Europe.
Kester Mann, telecoms analyst at CCS Insight, said BT “would not have taken this decision likely”.
“The reintroduction of roaming charges reflects a failure by UK telecom operators to stem the long-term decline in average customer spend amid heavy investment in future fixed-line and mobile networks,” he added.
Rocio Concha, Which? director of policy and advocacy, said: “It is disappointing EE is reintroducing roaming charges for customers upgrading or taking out new contracts from next month, and means that holidaymakers could be landed with hefty charges for using mobile data in the future.
“As the UK continues to negotiate trade deals, it must use this opportunity to lower the cost of roaming for consumers. The UK and EU must also urgently strike a deal on roaming charges to stop companies chipping away at the roaming benefits customers have become used to and to ensure the high charges consumers used to face do not return.”