Virgin Media O2 refuses to bring back EU roaming charges post-Brexit unlike Vodafone and EE
Virgin Media O2 has stated it will not to bring back EU roaming fees post Brexit, helping customers save hundreds of pounds in bills while using data abroad.
“With Covid still scuppering plans and disrupting day-to-day routines for so many, we’re starting the year by giving our customers some certainty: we will not be reintroducing roaming fees in Europe,” Virgin Media O2’s chief commercial officer Gareth Turpin told the Telegraph.
“Across both O2 and Virgin Mobile we’re maintaining our inclusive roaming so that our customers can travel to destinations all over Europe and use their, data, calls and texts just as they would in the UK.”
The company, which was founded in June as a result of the £31bn merger between giants Virgin Media and O2, will be the only one not to bring back roaming charges.
Vodafone and EE
After some delay, Vodafone is expected to roll out roaming fees from the end of this month while EE and Three will bring them back in March and May respectively.
According to CCS Insight’s chief analyst Ben Wood, companies have dragged their feet because of the negative impact the re-introduction of roaming charges will have on customers.
“The backlash and negative publicity for any network operator that does not get it right would be immense if a customer ended up with an eye-watering roaming bill,” he told the BBC.
“My guess is that rather than rushing out a change, the operators are delaying the introduction to be absolutely sure everything is working.