Tag: eduroam

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Roaming in the Netherlands

Amsterdam canal

I usually blog about my roaming experiences when I travel abroad. Sometimes I have issues, but more recently things have gone very smoothly.

I had visited Amsterdam nearly two years ago, back in October 2023, then I had no issues with roaming. I was visiting the Netherlands again, though this time I was attending a conference in Delft.

When I go abroad the process I use is go into Settings -> Mobile Data and turn off virtually all the apps which could use mobile data.  I would turn off mobile data for virtually all my apps and also specifically iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup. I am pretty sure they were the culprits for my excessive data usage whilst in Portugal. This time, as with my recent trip to France, I only turned off mobile data for iCloud Drive and iCloud Backup and a few data heavy apps.

The hotel I was staying at had good wifi, and the conference venue at TU Delft had eduroam. Having said that I did make use of mobile data when I was in coffee shops, on the train, and walking around various Dutch places. I was impressed with the mobile data speeds that were available.

I was there for five days and when I landed back in Bristol, I had not used up all my data.

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Reducing Roaming Costs

Royal Hospital Kilmainham

Last week I was in Dublin for the LILAC 16 conference. The last time I was in Ireland was in 2012. Back then I was on an EE contract and when I arrived at Dublin Airport I tuned flight mode on, on my iPhone as I didn’t want to incur huge roaming charges. There was quite a few press stories (and still are now and again) on people taking their smartphones abroad and racking up huge charges in their phones because of the way modern phones use data. I spent the week using wifi and making the odd call home when needed.

Since then there has been new EU legislation on roaming charges. I also have moved away from EE and have a new contract with Three using an iPhone 6S Plus. The contract gives me unlimited data on the phone as well as unlimited texts and a generous number of minutes, well who uses their phones for making calls these days?

So before this visit to Dublin I checked the Three website and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could use my phone abroad with no extra costs!

So before this visit to Dublin I checked the Three website and was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could use my phone abroad with no extra costs!

Though I have an unlimited plan, there are some restrictions when using my plan abroad.

If you have all-you-can-eat data you can use up to 12GB. If you have all-you-can-eat texts you can send up to 5,000 texts.

So during my visit I was able to easily join the Three Ireland network, make calls, send texts and use data with no problems or worries. Though it has to be said the UCD eduroam wifi network was excellent and faster than the Three 3G network, whilst the 3G was faster and more reliable than the hotel network. As I was there only three days, the 12GB allowance was more than enough.

After I got back I got a text from Three. According to them I saved £56.36 which was nice.

According to them I saved £56.36 which was nice.