What options are good for European mobile data?
I'm on giffgaff and roaming is ££££. I'm going to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and will need data for sat nav, bike nav, spotify tunes and communication.
Three feel at home looks like the best option I can find so far.
Don't most operators do a fixed price option? O2 is £2 a day unlimited in Europe, £4 a day in the US.
I pop a 3 PAYG sim in when I go abroad.
EE are robbing bastids when roaming
Damn EU law means from June there is no extra charge.
Three is your friend for this.
I just moved to Europe and kept my uk sim and number as it's cheaper than any local deal I could find.
EE now do a data plan including euro data.
Best I've used is 3 with 12gb data on a sim for £25 valid for a year
Interesting Drac - be interesting to see how giffgaff and other networks implement that.
Seems I could buy a payg 3 sim and use it abroad for 3 weeks with the feel at home thing.
Thanks all.
put maps.me and something with open cycle map for navigation and an sd card full of tunes and all you need to pay for is comms which will be pennies
will need data for sat nav
Offline maps.
bike nav,
Offline maps.
spotify tunes
Offline playlists.
and communication.
What sort of communication? Don't need data for phone calls.
What sort of communication? Don't need data for phone calls.
For what?
Three, however we have always found it to be pretty slow abroad (both Europe and USA). But very much cheaper than anything else we've found.
For what?
Phone calls. It's a hidden feature, if you press the green button that looks like a telephone receiver you can actually speak to people! It's incredible, you should try it.
phone sat nav needs data - even the google maps has limitations if you go off route.
Playlists are good but I always hear a tune then NEED to listen to the album it came from. Can't tell you which tune or which album in advance.
I use ViewRanger for bike nav but happy to be guided in better phone based options.
I've found 3 to be great, the mobile data can be slow but it's cheap, and all you need unless streaming music and video which I rarely do anyway, it's fine for Internet browsing and whatsapp etc.
So depends on your requirements.
And most bars and restaurants have WiFi anyway so just hook up to that if you really need to watch the latest episode of greys anatomy... Hahaha
phone sat nav needs data - even the google maps has limitations if you go off route.
In and of itself, phone sat nav (or indeed, any sat nav) does not [i]need[/i] data. Things like Google Maps don't use offline mapping (unless you cache it first) but plenty of others do. I use CoPilot, I have the entirety of the UK (and France when I last went there) on my phone. The only time it uses data is for Assisted GPS (to get the initial satellite fix faster) and for services like traffic data, all of which is entirely optional. GPS itself does not use data, at all.
I've never used offline phone mapping with the bike so can't help you with that, we used a dedicated Garmin unit for such duties. Same principle still stands.
I always hear a tune then NEED to listen to the album
No you don't, you just really want to.
EE 4GEE max plans all include data use in most EU countries. If you need tethering, lots of data in Italy TIM do a guest traveller SIM card that works well and is easy to get out there.
@on_and_on agter 2 months out of the uk you'll her a text threatening to cancel your contract and a cooy of the relevant T&C. Been there done that. They didn't cut me iff but it would have been a royal pita
Wife and I both had more than 2 months in the USA recently with no such threat.
EE are robbing bastids when roaming
I'm on EE and can use my contract minutes and texts for no extra charge whilst abroad (and 500mb of data for nowt - not much, but it is free!)
Kids are on 3 PAYG - very reasonable and usable abroad for no extra charge.
Thanks to the eu giffgaff now do eu roaming for no extra cost from 14/6/17.
Luckily we have voted to take back control so soon the roaming charge will be back under the control of the telecoms companies.
Cougar - Moderator
For what?
Phone calls. It's a hidden feature, if you press the green button that looks like a telephone receiver you can actually speak to people! It's incredible, you should try it.
[img]

Had a message today from O2 this morning to say that all calls, texts and data used across Europe come out of my regular allowance.
I occasionally use Google maps, mostly with a BP app for locating their filling stations because I have a BP fuel card for work.
I have Navmii, Here, CoPilot and Tomtom on my phone, I'm now using Tomtom all the time, because the routing on screen is much clearer than the free ones, which I need for work, but as Cougar points out, the data is really only needed for improving location accuracy, and for on-the-go traffic updating, which is a very handy thing to have; it took me off the M5 at j11a yesterday, just as the matrix signs showed a sign with an upturned car. As I came back towards j10, I went over the motorway to see a car with an overturned caravan right below me, so it really proves its worth.
Luckily we have voted to take back control so soon the roaming charge will be back under the control of the telecoms companies.
A small price to pay to "get our country back" and get £350m a week for the NHS (-;
Yes, o2 is free to use in Europe now (or at least will be in a couple of weeks)
Just comes out of your normal allowance (contract) or what you have already bought (payg)