Will you benefit from the ban on EU mobile roaming charges?

I see Roger Helmer agrees with you Wavechange he tabled an amendment on this legislation saying -quote- lower prices for jet-setters will mean higher domestic charges ,its good for MEP,s and bad for voters. It is also speculated that to compensate those countries outside the EU will cost much more in call charges. If the calling charges from the UK to the EU countries has not changed then legally you will be charged as an International call. If the called person is not in his home country they too will be charged an International rate , if he is standing right next to you he will still be charged an International rate.

I see. Thanks Duncan. Here’s another question, if I may. What happens if you call a mobile number from a mobile, unaware that the user is away on their holidays? I tend to call landlines when keeping up with friends but an increasing number of the people I know have ditched their landline phone.

From a UK user of a mobile phones perspective when you call a UK mobile phone number when they are abroad they are the ones that get charged extra not you Wavechange.

Thanks again. I have been told this before but have always been wary. No doubt this is why friends are keen for me to use Skype or WhatsApp when they are abroad.

Watch out Sophie you might get tarred with the same brush as me– too political. I will try to get you some genuine answers to your point as it is a good one. That didn’t take long Sophie (if you know what websites to visit ) –BAD news – Legally if we “Brexit ” then its ——back to the bigger charges , which will please Vodaphone who put extra charges on travellers to the EU to try to compensate for a loss of revenue. But there again – is TM going to pull one out of the hat or even-is she still going to be in office ?

As I understand it this comes under an EU regulation, not a directive, so it has not been incorporated into UK law and it would be for a future UK government to decide whether to have the EU price restrictions on roaming or not after the UK leaves the EU. This only applies to travellers and not to residents phoning from their own countries who will still be subject to the existing charging regime of their service provider.

It would not surprise me if the UK government refused to legislate for the new roaming provisions after we leave the EU, and why shouldn’t it? As Sophie says, this is an adverse consequence of Brexit that people were presumed to have taken into account when deciding to quit. People will no doubt deny it, but warnings were out there, and everybody knew that we could not cherry-pick the bits of the EU that we liked and discard the rest. It could be that roaming charges, or the absence of them, would be a competitive part of the tariffs offered by the different service providers and that no government action is required.

It looks like I have gone from being a 65% Remainer twelve months ago to a hard Brexiteer today now that the die has been cast.

Ian-They probably mean -use Wi-Fi – where possible only if you browse or download when using your Apple iPhone /Android phone wi-fi connection , users are not billed for data downloaded over the Wi-Fi .You are ONLY charged if you use a particular Wi-Fi hotspot which charges for access but you will be informed of that before you start.

Postcards and stamps are still quite cheap on the Continent.

I remember when you could post a card in a morning and it would be delivered locally in the lunchtime post.

When we moved to this house I found that some posting boxes in our area have their only collection at 09:00 [07:30 on Saturdays]. I assumed that was to enable same day delivery in the sorting office catchment area as our only delivery is usually around 14:00. Unfortunately it still takes two days to arrive. All the locally-posted mail for local delivery goes 30 miles to Norwich and back for sorting and batching into the postmen’s and womens ‘walks’ [except they drive a van]. In the first year of our life in the new home the Royal Mail would only deliver twice a week because they said there was not enough mail for the area to justify additional rounds. Following pressure from a local resident – whose identity escapes me at the moment – normal service was introduced and we now get cards from friends and relatives on holiday before they have returned home.

That depends Ben IF — you buy a local sim card from the machines that are in Terminals at Heathrow etc- and I am looking at a US website where your question was asked and a picture of Terminal 3 sim card vending machine is shown, then phoning a Spanish number from Spain is only local charges –BUT – your UK friends cant phone you on your UK number. : https://www.cnet.com/news/going-abroad-try-a-local-sim-for-your-smartphone/

I understand that (I am in Spain and have both a Spanish and my UK phones), my point was under the new roaming rules I can use my UK phone “as if I was at home” but does this mean a local call (Spain to Spain) will be charged at the UK rate for a local call or is it an International call “as if I was at home phoning Spain”?

The latter, Ben. An international call-charge but without the ‘roaming’ charge.