topic Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation? in Roaming

Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Theo77 — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 20:29:21 GMT

When I went to Germany before Covid, my phone always connected to the telekom.de network. I always got a great signal which was really fast (30 MBPS +).

Since 2021, this has changed for the worse. My phone now connects to o2-de, which often says 4G but gives me 2-3 MBPS on average. Once I had 4 bars but only about 0.05 MBPS, not even enough for Google Maps. I often find myself moved over to vodafone.de, which I have learned to be EE's backup. This seems a lot more reliable, though I am limited to Edge data. This problem seems specific to Germany, I can roam in other EU countries without issue.

I'm going to be going through Germany in a couple of weeks, so I would like to clarify the following:

1. Is manually connecting to telekom.de currently possible?

2. Does EE have any plans to let us use 4/5G on vodafone? If Telekom can't be done this would be almost as good.

3. If not what's the best way to stay connected in Germany with the current situation.

4. Are EE and Telekom.de still partners and is there a plan to re-enable this in future? They are still listed as such and Deutsch Telekom owns part of BT.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Chris_B — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 07:22:54 GMT

@Theo77 Have you tried a manual network search instead of letting the device just connect to a network?

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mailjackhorrey — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 10:15:43 GMT

I’m in Germany now and the default is o2-de which isn’t very good, but I’m pleased to say that Vodafone (edge) which was no help at all (3 or 4G would have been ok) has been dropped and Telekom.de is now reinstated with 5G which is very good.

I found my phone wouldn’t let me have it straight away so you will need to leave it on no service for about 10 mins. Leave it on manual otherwise it may default back to o2.

Now Germany offers two providers with internet like they do in every other country.

i was in Spain last week and they offered good coverage in Orange and Movistar.

I really hope EE don’t mess things up again in Germany. I was about to leave and go to another provider as I’m in Germany a lot but if this stays as it is I’ll be happy as I’m sure others will be as so many people have complained about the roaming service in Germany.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Theo77 — Thu, 20 Jul 2023 11:05:01 GMT

Hi @mailjackhorrey, Thank you for your reply. I'll mark this topic as solved and fingers crossed this will work for me when I go.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Theo77 — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 11:49:13 GMT

I'm in Germany now. As soon as I arrived my phone connected me to o2-de, but I tried a manual search and I managed to connect to Telekom.de after about 10 minutes of no service. Thank you @mailjackhorrey for the suggestion as I now have great phone signal.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mailjackhorrey — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 21:59:10 GMT

I’m so glad it works for you @Theo77 I found that this made all the difference to me! It would make more sense if Telekom was first choice as it was mostly pre 2019 but I’ll happily live with this! Hopefully enough people will know about it.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mailjackhorrey — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 13:24:14 GMT

@Theo77 Regrettably I have to take it all back as I’ve just arrived in Germany 🇩🇪 to find that Telekom has been removed and it is impossible to connect to.

o2 is the default provider with the usual limitations and Vodafone has been reinstated giving only ‘Edge’. What on earth is wrong with EE, they are very unreliable and just can’t find it within themselves to fix a problem and give customers a reliable roaming service.

Luckily I’ve got my spare O2-UK card which allows connection to Telekom but I shouldn’t have to go to these lengths. I went to see if I can end my contact but the sneakily extended it by a year when they had to correct a mistake they made on my tariff.

I’m definitely leaving as soon as I can and I’m taking my other two lines with me to O2. They don’t charge for roaming and provide a much more stable service. I’ve also been getting loads of call drops lately in the UK so this has been the final nail in the coffin !

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Jimbo150 — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 09:39:32 GMT

@mailjackhorreyor anyone, do you know what the current situation is with roaming in Germany?

I will be going soon, and am trying to decide whether I should bite the bullet and use my secondary Three account at cost. While I have inclusive roaming on EE, I would rather have decent connectivity...

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

XRaySpeX — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 00:41:32 GMT

@Jimbo150 : You may use your usual UK allowances in the EU with up to 50 GB (contract) or 25 GB (PAYG) data per billing month if you have more. If on contract & your contract started after 07/07/2021 there'll be a £2.29 / day charge for using your UK allowances in EU or alternatively you may buy the Roam Abroad Pass for £25 / month.

On PAYG there are charges for using your pack allowances in the EU of either £2.50 / day or £10 / week, to be taken only from your PAYG credit, not your recurring card payment. If you opt for neither you will be paying standard rates for calls & texts & need to buy a PAYG add-on for data.

If you are on contract, remember to text ROAMING to 150 before you leave UK to ensure the roaming ability is enabled on your account.

If you are on PAYG, make sure you have used your PAYG SIM to make a call or text in the UK.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Jimbo150 — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 12:06:49 GMT

Thanks for confirming @XRaySpeX. I have roamed many times, and do have the free 'Roam in EU' add-in (not Roam Abroad Pass which extends inclusive roaming to an extra five countries) so I am certain things are working correctly.

I am back from Germany, and sadly I had the same issues as noted by @mailjackhorrey and others. No signal at all for 30 mins, then O2 DE with intermittent 'No Service', only 2.5G EDGE on vodafone DE, and finally it appears that Telekom has been removed again as I could not connect to this network at any time.

I had to buy an eSIM which roamed immediately and perfectly on Telekom...it's surprising, as I have never had previous issues on EE, with recent and perfectly stable inclusive 5G roaming in Poland, France, Spain and Belgium.

I wouldn't move away from EE just because of what appears to be an issue with roaming in Germany, but it was still an annoying problem to have.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mailjackhorrey — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 22:19:23 GMT

@Jimbo150 I’m really sorry for my late reply. I got so sick of this problem I left EE.
I went to Germany last time in December and it was o2-de, and Vodafone and Telekom were accessible but on Edge only which is completely pointless.

I am now on O2 ~UK again. Their customer service is dire but once you’re set up you’re good to go. In Germany as you’d imagine o2-de is first choice but Telekom on 5G is accessible manually and it’s great.

O2 Uk provides better phone signal than EE but The data speed on EE is very good. Therefore in order not to miss out on this is took a second sim with Lycamobile which is 20GB for £2.50 a month through USwitch on pay as you talk. They piggyback on EE so I can still access their network!

my Lycamobile and O2 contract together are cheaper than what I had with EE, and I’ll get better service. Also both networks don’t change for EU roaming unlike EE. What’s not to like 🙂😂

I hope this helps…

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Jimbo150 — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 11:23:45 GMT

@mailjackhorreythanks for this, my turn to apologise for a slow reply.

Half thought you might've gone down that road. I might well try something similar, especially if I have similar issues next time. Got a couple of trips coming up so the proof will be in the pudding; I do not want the same faffing around as I had last time!

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mackieap — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 10:25:50 GMT

I spent the last weekend roaming (literally) around the eastern bit of Germany - arrival into Hanover, then the Harz mountains, then on to Berlin.

On arrival in Hanover I roamed onto O2 DE with very fast 5G service. However at other times I roamed onto Vodafone.de, and all I could get was EDGE. This happened in rural areas but also in the centre of Berlin. The only way I could restore 5G was by turning automatic network selection off and manually choosing O2 again...Vodafone simply refused to connect to even 4G let alone 5G.

Have EE got the right roaming agreement in place with Vodafone in Germany? I don't have this issue when I travel to the US or other European countries, every network I'm able to roam onto provides 4G/5G.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

James_B — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 14:22:39 GMT

Hi @mackieap,

Welcome to the EE Community. 🙂

I'm sorry to hear you has issues with data roaming.

It could well have been a temporary issue with the roaming network but don't hesitate to get in touch with Technical Support if it happens again.

James

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Jimbo150 — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 16:44:25 GMT

HI @James_B ,

I don't think the issue @mackieap had was "temporary" - it's exactly the same problem that I had, that @mailjackhorrey had, and a whole bunch of others that can be found doing a seach of the topics on this board.

As I said in my initial post in this topic, I had no signal at all for 30 mins, then O2 DE with intermittent 'No Service', only 2.5G EDGE on vodafone DE, and no access to Telekom. My phone, with the same configuation, has worked perfectly in five other European countries.

There *does* seem to be a problem with roaming in Germany which I do think EE needs to investigate properly as it seems to have been going on for a while.

Jimbo

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

Leanne_T — Fri, 16 Feb 2024 18:00:34 GMT

Hi @Jimbo150

Thanks for posting.

If you have the device set to automatic network selection when abroad this will connect to the strongest available signal at any given time in the area.

If you have any problems with service on an available roaming network, please contact our technical support team who will run detailed diagnostics and raise a support ticket if needed to be looked into.

Leanne.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

mailjackhorrey — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 15:41:30 GMT

No problem at all!
I have just got back from Germany 🇩🇪 and I had a reliable service with O2-UK roaming on Telekom.
However my Lycamobile sim which uses EE allowed roaming on all 3 Germany networks! Vodafone and Telekom were 5G and if you manually select them they come up straight away! This is great news if you’re an EE customer, however I remember something similar happened in the summer and they reverted back to type. This is great news but they seem to change their arrangements all too often. At least O2 UK are consistent.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

ak370 — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 21:37:14 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: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

agreebisch — Sun, 06 Oct 2024 05:42:47 GMT

Same here, just spend two weeks in southern Germany. Telekom unavailable, auto network selection gives edge on Vodafone. Luckily, manual selection allows for o2 with 5G. Shambles.

Re: Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

daroundtheworld — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 22:03:02 GMT

I'm in Frankfurt and it's October 2024. I thought I was going mad with my phone constantly latching on and then not budging off Edge whenever I emerged from an area with no signal. I had a similar issue for a while in Paris, early 2023 The only way to overcome this was to literally turn off my phone and restart it, which I've had to do daily. Given that I'm entirely reliant on data to get to my meetings and communicate with clients this is to put it mildly, 'far from ideal'. It is incomprehensible to me why it was FAR easier and seamless roaming with EE a decade ago than it is now. Is there any credible explanation for this?