Which data sim for EU and UK?

[John Russell]

We've a MiFi router and aerial in the van which works well. I've been putting my EE SIM in it but that's not convenient.

We're hoping to spend a month in Europe - France, Germany, maybe Switzerland, Austria and Italy- and probably a similar time travelling in the UK in a few trips. Which Sims would you suggest for data?

Good network coverage is more important than speed. We're not heavy users, no TV, but probably 10-20Gb per month.

We've used O2, O2-supported eg Tesco and GiffGaff, T-Mobile, Vodafone and found the best coverage in out-of-the-way locations was EE. O2-supported were particularly poor, dropping connections, seemed to be heavily throttled and frequently unable to reconnect whilst travelling. EE has been good in the UK and EU.

I'd prefer PAYG as our use is intermittent.

What would you suggest?

 

[RobbyMClark]

.

 

[John Russell]

We're not heavy users

Just checked and we've used around 110Gb WiFi and 20Gb mobile data in the last month so scratch that.

I think we used around 2.5Gb per day when away from home, which would be 75Gb per month. Different usage pattern.

EE offer 15Gb for £15, 30Gb for £20, but go over 25Gb outside the UK and there's a £3.60 per GB surcharge. It looks like you can buy repeated 15Gb top-ups without hitting the 25Gb limit.

Lebara looks good, provisioned by Vodafone, 30Gb for £15 or unlimited £25. Is there a fair usage policy?

Maybe get 30Gb Lebara and a couple of EE top-ups and try to use 5Gb before leaving the UK.

 

[grasscutter]

Popit sim is £25 per month for 100gb. No data roaming cap and you can pause it when not travelling.
Been using ours OK in France and Spain for two months.

 

[John Russell]

Popit has the drawback that it's auto-renewal.

Tbf they all are, but EE does and Lebara appears to require a manual top-up of the account before they renew. If you don't choose to pay, that stops it.

Is Popit the same or do they debit your bank account? They say they take next month's payment a month in advance.

You can pause it for £1 per month, but I'd probably miss the date and be forking out £25 until I remembered. .

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[jongood]

Im looking at changing from O2 to Poppit. With most of these Sims you can manually select other networks when roaming, its one of the advantages over a sim in its home market. Easy enough to do.

 

[John Russell]

I'm keeping EE for voice and see how the other works out, I only need it for trips.

Lebara's T&Cs:

19.2...
For some bundles the use of data allowance while roaming in the EEA might be subject to a fair use policy.

and Lebara's UK site says:

EU Roaming continues to be included in all our plans, which means that you can use your data allowance in Europe as you would in the UK. For the unlimited plan, you can use up to 30GB data when in the EU.

So £20 for 30Gb is Lebara's best offer for the EU.

Two Popit threads here:
https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/popit-mobile-changes.277848/

we do require at least 14 days of UK usage either before, after or in-between roaming

- which rules it out for me this time round - and here:
https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/beware-popit-mobile-phone.278715/

I spoke to them and was told if you remove your card details you wont be charged. They also said £1 charge to skip a month. What i found worrying is the fact that i had removed my card details from their website 3weeks before i was due to renew and yet they still used my card for the next month. I did get an apology and i was told i would be refunded 3 weeks ago

The goal posts seem to be moving around with Popit. Their website is very clean and easy to use, but I couldn't find detailed terms, and they ask for your account details to charge monthly, so it's a subscription model which IME usually results in overpayments and hassle.

Other than being the new, new thing, what are Popit's advantages? Can you get 100G per month in EU?

 

[Tombola]

Injust stick with my EE that I've had a few years since before the change. 2.00 ish extra per day for roaming unlimited data use.
Worth it for me not having all the faff of changing etc.

 

[Pablo19]

EE do 120gb of data with a 1 year time limit for £50. Perfect when you don't need data every month. Amazon product ASIN B09BFXRM4C

 

[SteveRallye]

Best deal in Portugal at present is £35 per month unlimited data on Vodaphone manually topped up each month but no good in Spain or France unfortunately.

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[John Russell]

EE's a good suggestion tho I was hoping for different to mitigate the risk of being tripped up by unseen small print. Happened last year when the GiffGaff sim didn't work at all in Europe due to not having made any UK voice calls, although plenty of texts and data.

Tombola Is this the one? EE Multi SIM - 30 Day Essential SIM Unlimited

EE have a 50Gb fair use policy limit, but it looks like you can pay £10 for roaming (Roam Abroad Pass) to re-enable it.

 

[Pablo19]

EE's a good suggestion tho I was hoping for different to mitigate the risk of being tripped up by unseen small print. Happened last year when the GiffGaff sim didn't work at all in Europe due to not having made any UK voice calls, although plenty of texts and data.

Tombola Is this the one? EE Multi SIM - 30 Day Essential SIM Unlimited

EE have a 50Gb fair use policy limit, but it looks like you can pay £10 for roaming (Roam Abroad Pass) to re-enable it.

The one I linked to above worked fine for me in 8 countries last September, just needed to be activated before we went which it was anyway. I did have one issue after one period when I didn't use it for a while but managed to reactivate it but can't remember how now! I think I had to put it in my phone and do something that was quite straightforward!

 

[RobertJary]

Smarty do unlimited data, although limited to 12Gb when roaming, for £20 per month.

 

[sgl5gjr]

EE's a good suggestion tho I was hoping for different to mitigate the risk of being tripped up by unseen small print. Happened last year when the GiffGaff sim didn't work at all in Europe due to not having made any UK voice calls, although plenty of texts and data.

Tombola Is this the one? EE Multi SIM - 30 Day Essential SIM Unlimited

EE have a 50Gb fair use policy limit, but it looks like you can pay £10 for roaming (Roam Abroad Pass) to re-enable it.

Which answers why my Giff Gaff Sim didn't work in Belgium last week....it's in a Mifi... so no calls are made ..... account cancelled on return and Popit sim ordered.... thank goodness for the satellite system

 

[Stonemags76]

Don’t touch Lyca Mobile - they say their EU limit is 12GB but turned out to be 4GB before they turned it off. Customer services is almost none existent, unhelpful & sometimes downright obstructive! They are ok in the UK, & often very cheap (1p for 10GB in husbands phone at the moment), but I would never rely on them again!

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[John Russell]

I swore never to go near GiffGaff again after wasting ages on Chat to get an explanation. They keep pretty quiet about that policy.

Got my money back after complaining, but we were unable to call each other whilst mostly skiing in different places.

 

[Riggers1]

Smarty do unlimited data, although limited to 12Gb when roaming, for £20 per month.

And you can switch off the auto renewal

 

[John Russell]

Pablo19 120Gb for a year at £50 looks like good value if it isn't limited by EE's 50GB EU 'fair use' policy.

Apparently that may have changed this year, but it's unclear as this data sim is only available from EE's Amazon store and there doesn't seem to be a way of contacting them to ask the question. Note: it needs to be activated in the UK.

Does anyone know whether there's EE's 50Gb fair use limit applies?

 

[Neil S]

POPIT mobile which uses EE gives you 100gb for £25 a month on a rolling contract which can be cancelled or paused at any time .
you can use it without restriction right up to the limit within the EU

 

[RobertJary]

And you can switch off the auto renewal

I can pause for up to 6 months using the Smarty app. After 6 months of no use, they'll close the account.

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[Pablo19]

Pablo19 120Gb for a year at £50 looks like good value if it isn't limited by EE's 50GB EU 'fair use' policy.

Apparently that may have changed this year, but it's unclear as this data sim is only available from EE's Amazon store and there doesn't seem to be a way of contacting them to ask the question. Note: it needs to be activated in the UK.

Does anyone know whether there's EE's 50Gb fair use limit applies?

I used it for streaming from a firestick and for the satnav on my tablet on a trip down through France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy in September and it worked fine with no issues with data throttling. I am about to buy another one as the last one has now expired.

 

[John Russell]

Amazon it is then!