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Mobile Phone Roaming & Brexit

There are lots of concerns for businesses over the upcoming Brexit, whether you are for it or against it.  For businesses that travel to the continent regularly, one of the issues that most concerns them is the mobile phone roaming and how Brexit will affect it.

When the UK leaves the EU in March 2019, the situation with roaming charges will depend entirely on any agreement in place as part of the withdrawal.  If there is no agreement, then the current mobile roaming rules will remain in place until the end of the transition period which is 31^st December 2020.

Then what?  If there is no agreement in place, UK mobile network operators will be able to reintroduce roaming charged.  That’s because it will cost them when you use your device abroad and there will be nothing to stop them passing this charge on.  There could also be some issues about accessing networks in other parts of Europe as the UK will no longer have the same availability as it does currently.

The government and mobile operators have pledged to do what they can to avoid this.  Three, for example, have committed to ‘maintain the availability of roaming in the EU at no additional cost’ after the Brexit date.  Vodafone has said it is too soon to comment and EE have said they have no plan to introduce charged but also that the government needs to include this on their list of things to handle urgently.  O2 have said something similar but all are waiting to see what the reality is after March next year.

Contact Clyde Solutions to discuss your requirements.