Roaming in the EU. And not in the EU.

I was not aware of this: In February 2006, O2 Ireland became the first operator to abolish roaming charges between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – introducing ‘All-Island’ pricing for people travelling between the north and south. Roaming charges in Ireland were a concern for those living or working near the border, who … Continue reading “Roaming in the EU. And not in the EU.”

I was not aware of this:

In February 2006, O2 Ireland became the first operator to abolish roaming charges between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland – introducing ‘All-Island’ pricing for people travelling between the north and south.
Roaming charges in Ireland were a concern for those living or working near the border, who often incurred roaming fees inadvertently, sometimes in their own homes.
In addition, international roaming has been abolished for O2 Ireland’s business customers between Ireland and the UK.

Of course, I have no idea whether I incur data or voice roaming charges because I’m an O2 UK customer and not an O2 Ireland customer.

It’s now a month to the big day and straight after that a two week cruise which will take in 6 countries in 12 days. I’ve been busying myself with getting FON set up so that I can find some free/cheap WiFi in some countries and looking at the roaming rates other than that. For the most part it’s going to be £3 a megabyte. For two of the countries at least it’s going to be £6 a megabyte.

Digging around, there’s the ‘Data Abroad’ Bolt-on which costs £20 per month for 10 megabytes and £50 per month for 50 megabytes. Seems like a winner and I’ll nab that when I migrate to my new contract.

Anyone got any EU and European-but-not-EU roaming stories?

Related posts:

  1. The Broadband Blueprint (re DETI Telecoms Consultation)
  2. HSDPA coverage in NI
  3. Update: Data Roaming still a rip off.
  4. Roaming Data….

0 thoughts on “Roaming in the EU. And not in the EU.”

  1. What 02 Ireland did was great, it is just a pitty that 02 UK have not followed suit.

    The roaming agreement also allows 02 Ireland Iphone users to avail of Bitbuzz Hotspots north of the border.

    On my cruise last year, I could only really get Wi-Fi on the ship, at $20 per day, this soon added up!!

  2. Russell, I think it’s only fair to disclose that you work for BitBuzz there – and there’s only 12 listed Bitbuzz hotspots north of the Border.

    I think that’s there’s incredible value in the O2 UK deal where you get access to any Cloud or BTOpenZone hotspots throughout the UK. That’s access to THOUSANDS of Hotspots. Next best deal is the FON deal giving access to thousands of hotspots throughout europe.

    I’d be happy with Shipboard WiFi.

  3. I was merely commenting on the fact that the roaming deal is good for Irish 02 customers and not for Uk customers. (we are talking calls here, not Wi-Fi)

    In terms of the Cloud deal, I agree they have a fantastic amount of hotspots and the cross-roaming deal with BTOpenzone opens up the callbox and wireless city networks to iphone users which really is whats needed to make full use of the product.

    Which ever Wi-Fi network you look at, bitbuzz, bt, surf2go, cloud. Once you leave Belfast there is a massive lack of coverage and that is something that needs to change!

    Ipass do some good roaming deals for Europe I believe.

  4. Come off it – the roaming deal is between O2 Ireland and Bitbuzz – the latter just happens to have hotspots on both sides of the border. Whether it’s a good deal depends on their location – and with 6 locations in Belfast (though the International Airport can hardly be called Belfast), it’s not the most compelling.

    What’s really needed is a lot more cross-network roaming agreements.

    BT OpenZone have roaming agreements with T-Mobile, The Cloud, Orange, are members of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, have agreements with Sonera, iBahn, Telia, CPH – get Bitbuzz in on that list and then you’ve got something to talk about.

    You’ve opened a can of worms here – but at least it’s one of the hot topics for the proposed ‘Wireless Camp’ which I’m going to work on soon – BedouinCamp anyone?

  5. We currently have roaming deals with Ipass, Weroam, Trustive, Boingo, Vodafone and 02….. And a few other’s being worked on I can’t discuss at present.

    Wireless camp – bring it on! – It is a debate which is much needed!

  8. Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Germany, Denmark.

    BT have agreements in all of these nations (except Estonia) so I’ll be fine (especially when I add an International Data bundle onto my account)

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