Tesco Mobile scraps European roaming charges, more countries than Three

Tesco Mobile has ditched roaming charges for its network customers who travel around Europe this summer. What’s more, its new Home From Home scheme covers more countries than Three’s equivalent service.

Pay monthly or pay as you go customers will be able to use their existing UK mobile tariffs to call, text and use data in Europe from 23 May until midnight 3 September, at no extra cost.

Any additional calls and texts to EU members over an allowance will be charged at 4p a minute and 1p a text.

The Home From Home service covers 31 countries in total, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

EU regulations will soon be enforced (from 30 April) demanding networks lower their roaming charges. From June 2017, all EU roaming charges across the networks will be scrapped.

Tesco, though, has decided to act early.

“We want our customers to enjoy their holiday without having to worry about the cost of using their phones. So we decided, why wait until 2017 to banish roaming? Let’s help our customers and give them a taste of what’s to come,” said Simon Groves, chief marketing officer at Tesco Mobile.

It is unknown at present what effect the UK potentially leaving the EU would have on roaming charges going forward. Some analysts suggest that European roaming charges could rise again should that be the result of the forthcoming referendum.