Only one phone network has promised to not reinstate roaming charges after Brexit

As you may well know, as of last week, if you head abroad to any of the countries in the EU, you won’t get stung/stang/stinged by any of those gross roaming charges that used to punk your phone bill. Now, you can hole yourself up in your hotel room and maniacally bang through Facebook just like you’re at home! You don’t have to go outside at all – amazing!

But, like, there’s that whole ‘Brexit’ thing that’s (probably) going to happen, and that’s going to mess everything up. Once the UK books it, packs it and fucks off, what will happen to this wonderful roaming agreement then? Unfortunately, everything will probably go back to normal because we’re no longer allowed into the cool corner of the common room.

To find out exactly what we’ve got in store, tech site Gizmodo decided to create the Giz UK Brexit Challenge. What this involved was asking the four major UK phone networks what the gosh darn in hell would happen after Brexit – would they be reintroducing roaming charges after we hop it, or not?

Here are the answers from the big dogs:

EE

"We’ve just introduced a great new range of price plans offering customers inclusive roaming benefits – and we have no plans to change these. We hope the government will also put consumers at the top of their agenda in the coming Brexit negotiations to help ensure that UK operators can continue to offer some of the lowest prices in Europe to their customers."

Vodafone

"It’s too soon to assess the implications of Brexit on roaming regulation, however, we expect competition will continue to drive good value for customers."

O2

"Making calls, sending texts and using mobile data in any European country will cost our customers the same as it will in the UK, starting from 15 June this year. We will be engaging with the Government and Ofcom to discuss what may happen in the future once the UK officially leaves the EU."

Yeah, OK, nice and cryptic with those ones – not giving anything away (apart from the fact that they’ll clearly be reintroducing roaming charges). Thanks then, to Three, who gave a nicely definite answer, and one that will be ringtones to many people’s ears:

“We are committed to retaining Feel at Home in the EU and regardless of the outcome of Brexit negotiations.”

Nice one, Three – you’re sacking off those bastard fees no matter what happens after Brexit. This is great, and should be exactly what all the other networks are doing. It’s certainly a huge selling point for the network once we all go into hiding.

So if you’re the kind of person that can’t go on holiday without letting everyone know what you’re doing every five minutes then it might be time to switch networks. Your 75 Instagram followers will be so pleased.

(Image: iStock)