Whether this is a personal device or a corporate contract the costs in some exotic destinations can be extreme and with ever increasing demand and use of data, the costs can soon mount up.

Most organisations will have had some nasty bill shock from roaming. Whilst some organisations’ tariffs may mitigate or prevent this, such as an all-encompassing ROW bundle, many tariffs will have some destinations that are expensive. It is not unusual to see per MB rates as high as £6 for destinations such as Maldives, Seychelles, Lebanon, Andorra, Tunisia, Cape Verde and many other more off the beaten track countries.

A trip of a lifetime for Clare Tyndall one of our Delivery Consultants recently highlighted the excessive cost of roaming in some countries. Celebrating her friend’s 50th she was off on safari to Kenya and then to the beaches of Zanzibar in Tanzania with limited Wi-Fi options Clare knew she would be reliant on her mobile but also expected it to be expensive. As such Clare sought advice from none other than TNC’s very own mobile expert Adrian Joyce. Adrian was quick to recommend a travel eSIM – Clare ended up paying £15 for 10GB of data lasting 7 days. This left her free to stream music and video during the evening and to post videos to her socials documenting her extraordinary travels but more importantly she was able to track her journey on mapping apps and stay in touch with her family even out in the savannahs of eastern Africa. Clare used about 6.6GB which had she been on her domestic network roaming in the traditional way would have cost her £7.50 per day whilst her friend’s network offered a 100MB bundle for £26 or 500MB for £45 or 1GB for £65. So if her friend had used her mobile as much as Clare (despite Clare’s warnings of likely high cost!) then she would have spent more than £400 more than Clare!!!

Two things are clear to TNC

1. The rise of travel eSIM offers – there are a plethora of companies offering this service at different rates, covering different geographies (whether regional or country specific) and different scales of data.
2. The domestic networks are reacting – with, what one expects to be profitable revenues increasingly diverting to the travel eSIM companies, the MNOs are switching to daily passes or more economical bundles. There are still savings to be had but the MNOs have closed the gap and rely on the laziness of users and perceived friction of using eSIMs to enable them to charge more. Some networks are better than others so its always worth checking the specifics particularly if the travellers are on different networks

For some of TNC’s customers we have seen that consecutive contract renewals over the years have left them with legacy roaming rates – these should be challenged at renewal or via RFP to ensure the nasty bill shock becomes a historic legend rather than a future uncomfortable chat with your FD about how this happened and why you didn’t mitigate it. In the short-term travel eSIMs offer a great mitigation and are becoming ever easier to use as Clare can attest!

And maybe one day we’ll only need to use one provider wherever we are in the globe – who knows what the long-term possibilities and aspirations are of companies like Starlink….

Speak to us if you have concerns about your roaming costs