Roaming in Germany - What is the current situation?

[Theo77]

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. 

[mailjackhorrey]

@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…

[Jimbo150]

@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!

[mackieap]

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. 

[James_B]

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

[Jimbo150]

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

[Leanne_T]

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.

[mailjackhorrey]

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. 

[ak370]

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.

[agreebisch]

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.

[daroundtheworld]

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?