T-Mobile UK launches new worldwide data roaming plans as EU price caps loom

The mobile roaming market continues to heat up after T-Mobile announced its new ‘Internet and Broadband Travel Boosters,’ providing its customers with dedicated plans that will cover their data needs when travelling, starting at £1.

The plans will be available from June 19 and will operate in the same way as competing plans from other operators. When a customer arrives in a foreign country, T-Mobile will direct them to a dedicated page from which they can order a booster.

However, as it will be a pre-pay option, users will never run up a huge bill. They’ll use exactly what they pay for.

Not limiting its plans to pay-monthly customers, T-Mobile offers Internet Travel Boosters for smartphones and Broadband Travel Boosters for all other mobile broadband devices. While plans start at £1, the carrier has a pretty confusing table to list its different plans, which are split into numerous regions worldwide.

However, bundles come in a range of different packages. Some will last a month, others will last until the customer has consumed the data which they ordered. Customers will see charges added to their monthly bill or taken from their pay-as-you-go credit.

This covers both personal and business users, although prices do differ.

How Much Will The Plans Cost?

T-Mobile has specific plans for different regions, which are grouped into different categories:

• A – USA, Turkey, India
• B – Canada, Jamaica
• C – Chile, Hong Kong
• D – Qatar, Cuba, Brazil

Broadband Booster cost breakdown:

While £1 for 3 megabytes may seem cheap, if you are using a smartphone for your data, you may see your limit reached within minutes of switching roaming on to update your Facebook of Twitter profile. You can forget about uploading a photo and sharing it with friends.

For usage in Europe, the plans come in significantly higher than T-Mobile’s rivals. Vodafone offers customers the option to use their UK data plan for an extra £3 a day and Three offers a plan that gives customers unlimited data for £5 a day in selected European countries.

In May, we reported that roaming in Europe was to get lot cheaper for millions of EU citizens as new European Union price caps on mobile data roaming came into force. From 1 July 2012, EU mobile operators will be able to charge no more than 70 euro cents plus VAT per megabyte for data while their customers roam in other EU countries.

Ultimately, it comes down to the individual use case. Some people won’t want to use their phones that much abroad, while others will exclusively rely on it, so 50MB for £10 may suit many T-Mobile customers.

[Image Credit: Flickr – Simon Allardice] 

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