[Thine Wonk]

O2 is increasing it's roaming charges outside of the EU by a whopping 140%. I would recommend finding a local sim when travelling, but make sure if you are an O2 user you keep your phone turned off, unlike some other networks O2 charge when people leave voicemails on your phone whilst you are abroad too.

Sources 1 2 3

[davybhoy]

Absolute gangsters!! That's a disgrace to put prices up to those prices! Should be ashamed of themselves for charging those prices!!

[dragonrapide]

Incredible that they can get away with this. Wonder how much publicity there will be about it.

Can you imagine using your phone in the US without realising they are grasping so much money from you. Shame on them.

[Thine Wonk]

It sounds like they had some reasonable rates that have now suddenly shot up. They were very unhappy and anti the EU roaming caps, so they have just put the prices up internationally as a result.

[wrexham103.4]

woah thats one hell of a hike up

[Thine Wonk]

Originally Posted by dragonrapide

Incredible that they can get away with this. Wonder how much publicity there will be about it.

It's getting mainstream coverage, The Sun had it in the paper today as part of a wider article.

O2 hike to roam
MOBILE phone operator O2 was blasted yesterday for more than doubling roaming rates outside Europe.
The cost of receiving a call from the US to Europe is to rise from 39p to 90p a minute.
The move by O2 — owned by debt-hit Spanish giant TELEFONICA — comes three months after the European Commission capped roaming rates in Europe.
Tomas Mendoza, of smartphone rental specialist TEP WIRELESS, said: “O2 is doing this simply because it can.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...#ixzz2B66TviqK

The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...eas-calls.html

The mail, the tech blogs etc are all reporting it. It seems to have got a lot of coverage in the business sector too as they are the ones most impacted. There's even a Digital Spy article.

Such a price hike in one go is crazy.

[Everything Goes]

Networks were legally obliged to cut their EU roaming charges it perhaps no surprise that they will try and make it up some other way. Will other networks follow?

[wrexham103.4]

Originally Posted by Everything Goes

Networks were legally obliged to cut their EU roaming charges it perhaps no surprise that they will try and make it up some other way. Will other networks follow?

tmobiles charges are similar to O2's for roaming outside the EU , so lets hope not!

[Thine Wonk]

Finally The Register has picked up on this story.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11...g_prices_rise/

I especially like this sentence:

While you're at it, O2, why don't you drop the price of all your current mobile deals and data plans for the very same reason? After the constant barrage of bad publicity recently, including network failure and excessive Nexus 4 tariffs, perhaps that's exactly what is needed to quell a growing feeling of discontent among those on the network.

[Orbitalzone]

So will this affect Tesco users?

[Thine Wonk]

I wouldn't have thought so Orbital, unless they follow suit as Tesco mobile is 50% owned by O2.