topic Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries in Mobile Services

Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

mackieap — Mon, 13 May 2024 08:24:46 GMT

I moved across to EE from Vodafone back in March 2023. One of Vodafone's strong points was unlimited roaming, including tethering, in 83 countries across the world with no speed cap or any kind of throttling. It genuinely works as if you are on your home network. I assumed - seeing as EE is the other. major network in the UK, and I was paying for a contract which promised equivalent service (use my UK plan as if I was at home in EU, US, Canada etc.) - the experience using EE would be similar.

I was wrong. The service EE offers whilst roaming is far worse than that offered by Vodafone. Why?

1. It's very clear EE employs speed/traffic management i.e. throttling on users who are roaming. In central Washington DC and Manhattan last week I was testing speeds using the Google service (searching "speed test" on the search engine and then following the built-in prompts) and getting 2-3mbps download despite having a full 5G signal. If I switched to the Ookla app, I got better speeds (up to 300mbps in some cases in the same location), but with 300ms+ latency and it took some time for full speed to be reached i.e. the 'speedometer' ramped up very slowly, rather than flicking to the speed available almost instantly like it does at home.

2. EE have also very poor network agreements. On arrival in the US you can use either T-Mobile or AT&T and IME it will switch to T-Mobile first. Unfortunately however the speeds available via T-Mobile are so slow as to be almost unusable. So you must manually switch to AT&T. It's a similar case in Germany, where inexplicably EE has done a roaming deal with Vodafone DE who only offer EDGE, so you need to manually change network again in order to be able to do anything. I do wonder whether those at EE responsible for doing these deals actually travel to the countries they're responsible for?

All this in comparison to Vodafone which in my experience as 10+ years as a customer travelling all over the world, 'just works.'

I will be moving back as soon as my EE contract is up in March.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Normskiii — Tue, 09 Jul 2024 07:41:54 GMT

I’m in Italy at the moment. It’s worse than 3 G I now have to buy a data sim from mobimatter. It’s definitely going to influence me next purchase.
I’ve been to Bulgaria France and Germany all the data speeds are very poor now across Europe too.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

ak370 — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:38:11 GMT

I can confirm the problems are ongoing in Germany unlike in other EU countries. Crossed into Germany in different places but somehow always get connected to Vodafone EDGE and have to manually switch to O2.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Wilsons71 — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 12:34:05 GMT

I totally agree, I have had nothing but problems. Roaming and they are always trying to blame someone else.
had problems in Mexico, Dominican Republic , Egypt , Belgium , Germany and Denmark and was told no problem with the system and when I return to uk was told it was due to something not activated in account which I always specify world roaming and no spend caps.

But each time I travel I have problems

i work in main land Europe on a regular basis and connectivity is very poor .

as I s the Uk coverage now.

My contract is up in November and I will be moving to another network.

i have been with Ee / orange since around 1998.

as for the customer assistance 150

it is a complete waste of time.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

JPun001 — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 13:07:58 GMT

Completely agred!
i am currently in Germany and I upgraded by EE plan to eu roaming last month believing this woulf be helpful for my business trip, its been utter nonsense. The data is not slow, its just non existent! I waited for 10 mins and still didn’t load so had to use my work phone’s hotspot to arrange uber to hotel. Now i am using just work phone! I thought my personal phone was broken.

i been with EE for over 10 years and have both phone & home broadband but it is now decisive for me to move on to better network provider.

EE need to seriously look into this issue if they don’t want to loose more customers like me.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Peter_W — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 15:52:42 GMT

Hi @JPun001, welcome to the EE Community!

Since you arrived in Germany, have you managed to successfully connect to a local network and load a page, even if this is slower than usual?

Having a roaming pass active on your phone isn't the same as having the ability to roam enabled, and you do still need to set this up before heading away.

Peter

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

JPun001 — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 06:49:44 GMT

Hello Peter,
Of course I have connected to local network, this is not the first time I use Data roaming. This is how I connect on my workphone all the time.
I waited for over 30 mins still not a single page is loading. The network line shows full bar with ‘E’ sign but nothing loads at all.

Kind Regards Jamuna Pun Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Leanne_T — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:49:12 GMT

Hi @JPun001

Thanks for coming back to us and letting us know what you have tried already.

Can I just check, do you get the same data speeds on different local networks? Which device are you using?

Are calls and texts working OK?

Leanne.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

ak370 — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:54:45 GMT

For the customer – You need to manually select the O2 network, and then data worked for me.

For EE – CAN YOU PLEASE SORT OUT YOUR ROAMING AGREEMENTS?!

It is unbelievable how ignorant EE is on this. There are so many reports, including in this thread, yet nothing gets done?!

If EE only has a roaming agreement with O2 in Germany, then please configure roaming profiles to select this network as the default. It should not pick up Vodafone if there is no data roaming agreement.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

ak370 — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:26:45 GMT

Reminder of previous reports:

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/ee-roaming-in-germany-defaults-to-edge-was-ee-getting-only-or-mostly-4g-where-it-was-5g-before.42532/

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Services/Very-disappointed-with-EE-roaming-service-in-all-countries/td-p/1386088

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Mobile-Services/Roaming-in-Germany-What-is-the-current-situation/td-p/1275760/page/2

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Leanne_T — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 08:20:57 GMT

Hi @ak370

When you're travelling abroad, check your phone is set to automatic network selection (this is so your phone will pick the best network). You'd only be able to connect to networks that we have a roaming agreement with. You'd not be able to connect to other networks.

Thanks.

Leanne.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Yingping — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 22:09:35 GMT

Hi, I completely agree what you said and I wish I had read your comment before I came to Paris. I had the same issue in the airport and have been struggling to access the link so had no choice but use daily usage plan until today it completely didn’t work and I had no data all day in Paris city centre and could only rely on the road signs.
I am gonna call EE when I go back to the UK and request the refund of my roaming charge if they deduct my money. This is disgraceful and I took the gamble to believe what they told me on the phone the day before I came to Paris that I only need to follow their link to buy the pass when I arrive in France.
EE shouldn’t ruin their customer’s trips and let them get lost when I am already abroad. I am pretty speechless at this point and the message system they use does not respond to me at all, it’s helpless situation and we can’t do anything…

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Simo75 — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 14:11:18 GMT

I am so disappointed with roaming in the Netherlands as I found it IMPOSSIBLE to set up abroad, just went round in circles! I had increased my spend limit to cover roaming charges but could not select and confirm the package I needed to buy! Was hacked off with the increase in charges from my last visit when with BT! You need to wait till you arrive in your destination then try to set up roaming, this simply did not work, my partner spent over an hour with my phone while I was driving to our resort, just unable to sort anything (she is IT literate, it was the app that failed). I used my spend cap up by day 10 and was left with no phone for the last four days of the trip!! I will be leaving EE with phone and broadband accounts as soon as I can bring myself to speak civilly to a representative. As far as I am concerned they failed miserably!!

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Peter_W — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 16:12:08 GMT

Welcome to the Community @Simo75.

I'm disappointed to hear you had some trouble getting roaming set up during your time in the Netherlands, and hope the trip was a good one otherwise.

We always recommend setting up your roaming prior to going away by sending us a text with ROAM to 150, this will ensure you're up and running once you arrive, and receive the landing text that will direct you to our roaming pass options.

If you have trouble with the page itself, it's worth making sure that you're not connected to any form of WiFi whilst using this, and it's also worth swapping manually between local networks in case the one you're connected to initially isn't working as expected.

The add-ons page is whitelisted so you should be able to access this free of charge right away.

I would definitely recommend speaking with our team about your experience once you're ready, and they'll be able to look over the experience you've had here, and make sure everything is set up as it should be moving forwards.

Peter

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

mackieap — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 17:01:25 GMT

I think things have improved a bit.

USA in May - (DC and NYC) - all fine, good speeds.

Germany and Czech Republic last week - excellent, Vodafone DE now lets you use 5G so that must’ve been fixed. Service in CZ was probably a bit better than Germany particularly in rural areas (I took the train from Dresden to Prague, as soon as we crossed the border service from the Czech network - I think o2 - was noticeably better).

Long may it continue.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Normskiii — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 12:33:35 GMT

I always buy an eSIM now as EE have definitely dialled down the speed. Useless and inefficient and won’t even load simple pages.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

bristolian — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 08:05:54 GMT

@Normskiii wrote:
I always buy an eSIM now as EE have definitely dialled down the speed. Useless and inefficient and won’t even load simple pages.

Webpages not loading are rarely going to be due to speed restrictions - those are set far higher than anything needed for basic web browsing, and are usually used to restrict video streaming for FUP purposes.

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Simo75 — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 07:01:29 GMT

Hi,I did phone EE to set up roaming as I have done in previous years to be told that it needs to be done once you arrive! I increased my spend cap to cover the cost but on arrival we tried for over an hour to get the app to accept roaming but just kept getting a page saying that data was free in Netherlands, this was clearly wrong, I did not make a phone gall and only used my phone as a navigation device in both car a bike. I ran out of data on day 9 leaving me frustrated with a dead phone and no navigation help for the last five days of my holiday.I will be moving my Broadband and phone to another provider as soon as practical!

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Christopher_G — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 09:30:50 GMT

Hi @Simo75

I recommend following @Peter_W's advice and speak with our Customer Support team about your experience. They'll be able to look into this and log a complaint against your account.

Chris

Re: Very disappointed with EE roaming service in all countries

Simo75 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 08:18:33 GMT

I feel I did everything right before my holiday, I called EE to arrange roaming, upped my spending cap to cover the cost and on arrival tried for over two hours to set it up. So the only option left to me is to vote with my feet, I will be leaving EE for both mobile and broadband as soon as my contract finishes. Why EE changed to only setting up on arrival and not offering a 14 day package is beyond me.I like to know that all bases are covered before travelling and think my phone is an essential tool during my travels. Cannot wait to move to a new and more customer friendly supplier!Peter