O2 Post Brexit European Roaming? Not as we know it.

Chris Davison writes :
O2 March 2021

A colleague received a call on her O2 UK mobile whilst in Austria offering a new, cheaper contract. Asked whether roaming continues following Brexit, she received assurances that : “There are no catches”. The nice O2 lady added “You can see that nothing has changed on our website”.
However, hidden in the depths of the online O2 small print the latest “Fair Usage Policy” limits EU roaming to genuine short visit usage only, to less than 63 days in any four month period and completely excludes any business use.

This post Brexit arrangement significantly restricts mobile phone roaming use outside UK. Failure to comply by not returning to UK regularly and demonstrating your primary UK use, it seems, could lead to breach of contract, SIM card blocking and removal of service.

This is what exciting, dynamic assistance for exporting entrepreneurs looks like.

“You may only use our services in our Europe Zone (excluding the UK) for periodic travel, like holidays or short breaks. Your data usage may be limited in our Europe Zone (excluding the UK) at a lower level than you data allowance in the UK if you’re a Pay As You Go customer. Once you go over this limit you’ll be charged. For these limits and charges please see www.o2.co.uk/help/pay-as-you-go/roaming-in-europe.
What to avoid: Using our services for the first time outside of the UK, using a large volume of your allowance (be that text, calls or data) in our Europe Zone (excluding the UK), or using our services and travelling within our Europe Zone (excluding the UK) for prolonged periods which don’t follow reasonable consumer holiday and travel patterns and behaviour. If you use our services outside the UK in our Europe Zone for 63 or more days in any four month period and you cannot demonstrate prevailing use and / or presence in the UK this is likely to be deemed to be an unfair use of our services. In such an event we will notify you and then after two weeks charges will apply (the “Surcharges”). For Pay Monthly and Pay As You Go customers the Surcharges are £3/GB for data, 3.3p/minute for calls and 1p/text for texts. These charges will cease to apply if you can subsequently demonstrate prevailing use and / or presence in the UK.“

O2 small print…