topic Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability? in Roaming

Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ts330 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 09:23:47 GMT

I have been with Vodafone for 10+ years and use their global roaming 10ish times a year across EU, US, Asia and Africa. My experience is that it simply works. I land, I get a signal and a txt message welcoming me to the country. It then proceeds to work seemlessly.

HOWEVER... their regions do not include a number of countries (such as Mauritius, Singapore, UAE etc) which I'm due to need soon. EE now seems to have a contract level where I don't have to think about roaming - I can just arrive and it works. They also seem to cover countries Vodafone don't. And to top it off, their contract that covers this is cheaper than Vodafone.

My question is, am I going to regret moving my entire family across?

Opinions appreciated! 🙂

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

Schockwave — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 11:42:53 GMT

Hello @ts330 ,

Welcome to the community,

Whenever I have been abroad, and just this summer, did a European cruise, and always had connection, have in the past been on holiday in Las Vegas and Egypt, and have had connection with no problem, but just make sure that you have roaming on your account, you can do this by texting ROAMING to 150.

If you find there is no network or having issues, rather than automatic network, do a manual network search to find one that works.

Oh by the way, I have also been to Germany and Switzerland and for one day Italy, with no problems.

Hope this helps.

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ts330 — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 16:39:26 GMT

Do I have to enable roaming every time I travel? I don't want this. It must just work. I don't want to mess around with ANY settings before/during/after I travel. I just want to be able to roam with a fair use data-policy and ZERO effort like I currently do. I simply don't have the energy to manage an entire family's accounts every time we travel. thanks!

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

bristolian — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 17:15:28 GMT

@ts330 wrote:
Do I have to enable roaming every time I travel?

No. Enablement of the roaming facility is a one-off process.

Billing add-ons can be chosen each time you arrive in a new country, if you don't have these baked into your plan. It sounds like you're looking at plans where the necessary add-ons are included.

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ts330 — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 21:56:54 GMT

Thanks. So by the looks of things (and EE could really make this a LOT simpler to get one's mind around by actually linking properly from their various info boxes)...

The Unlimited Full Works option gives EU and Zone 1 roaming (which doesn't have a perfect match to Vodafone's global roaming - you win some you lose some). All other zones/countries need an add-on
The general consensus seems to be that getting any form of roaming package working once you land is a nightmare because you don't have data / can't sign into your account because of 2FA being unreachable without data

The cost savings appears to be too trivial to deal with the issues EE have managing roaming add-ons.

thanks for the help.

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

bristolian — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 22:14:29 GMT

@ts330 wrote:
The general consensus seems to be that getting any form of roaming package working once you land is a nightmare because you don't have data / can't sign into your account because of 2FA being unreachable without data

The link to purchase add-ons is whitelisted precisely for this reason.

Support fora such as this, by their nature, tend not to attract users posting thanking EE (or any provider) for good service - it's not in human nature.

You tend to only see the problems, when browsing a forum such as this.

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ukms — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 08:37:36 GMT

I previously had 2 devices with Vodafone as well as my account with EE. I moved the 2 devices back to EE because of the attraction of roaming countries for my use case in the Full Works package.

The 2 devices are extensively used for roaming to a variety of countries and I have really never had any significant issues at all, generally everything works as soon as I switch the device on. There have been a couple of occasional glitches usually related to the foreign network not EE, but nothing you wouldn't get from any other carrier.

Personally I have found the management of my account far easier with EE but thats a personal thing.

Im obviously aware lots of people posting on this forum have roaming issues but often reading between the lines these can be self inflicted because of lack of preparation or not using correct packages, settings etc.

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ts330 — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:51:57 GMT

Thanks for the fantastic reply - this is exactly the insight I'm looking for, even though it's a sample size of 1. 🙂

Re: Vodafone vs EE Roaming - how do they compare for reliability?

ukms — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 11:08:36 GMT

Just to add as you specifically mentioned UAE and Singapore. I spend extended periods of time in the UAE and regularly visit Singapore. As you probably know both have brilliant network coverage and the roaming always works like a treat. In the UAE I have a local number with Etisalat but my EE sim will seamlessly switch between Du and Etisalat depending on where I am, calls always fine and data is always fast, I rarely bother to measure speed as it can be misleading but it's always good enough to run a busy corporate phone, accessing documents from OneDrive, Sharepoint, Teams calls etc etc. (Just to note my EE plan is not any kind of business plan, its Full Works personal)