For most Cypriot travellers, using a mobile phone elsewhere in Europe now works exactly as expected: the plane lands, the handset finds a network and messages begin arriving before the baggage carousel starts moving.

But “most” is not the same as everyone.

A new survey from Cyprus’ Office of the Commissioner for Electronic Communications and Postal Regulation found that 16% of respondents experienced a roaming connection problem while travelling in the European Economic Area during 2025. The figure is an improvement on 19% in 2024, yet it still means roughly one in six travellers encountered friction under a system designed to make mobile use abroad feel like mobile use at home.

A better first connection

The research was conducted by Pulse Market Research in December 2025 and covered 2,014 people, representing 3,869 trips across the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Greece dominated the travel map, visited by 75% of respondents, followed by Italy, Austria, France and Germany.

The reassuring headline is that 83% had no connection problem when they arrived, up from 81% a year earlier. Among those who did struggle, most eventually connected automatically or after contacting their Cypriot provider. Only 2% remained unable to join a local network throughout the trip.

That final group is small, but complete disconnection is no minor inconvenience when boarding passes, hotel messages, transport apps, banking verification and maps all assume the traveller is already online.

Connected does not mean equal

The more revealing findings concern quality rather than availability.

Travellers reported slower mobile internet on 21% of trips, down from 24% in 2024. On 19% of trips, their phone connected to an older network generation than at home—typically moving from 5G in Cyprus to 4G abroad. That was also an improvement, falling from 25%.

Other failures were less common but still visible: 13% reported difficulty accessing mobile data, 8% experienced poor call quality, 6% could not complete calls, 5% encountered dropped calls or failed SMS messages, and 4% lost service completely at some point.

Overall, 77% said roaming quality was comparable with their service in Cyprus, while 5% considered it better and 16% worse. The weakest experiences were reported in Latvia, Sweden, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway; Denmark, Estonia, Croatia, France and Greece performed most reliably.

These rankings should be treated carefully. Traveller numbers differ by destination, and an individual experience depends on the home operator’s roaming agreements, preferred-network steering, handset, tariff and the visited network’s coverage. They are useful signals, not a definitive league table of national networks.

The quality gap matters

“Roaming Like at Home” removed the most obvious problem—punitive surcharges—in June 2017. The updated EU rules applying since July 2022 went further, stating that travellers should receive the same network quality and speed they have at home, including 5G where technically available.

That promise remains harder to deliver than price parity. Roaming is built on agreements between a customer’s home operator and foreign networks. A destination may offer excellent 5G coverage, but the roaming customer can still be directed to a partner with weaker coverage or limited access to newer technology.

The Cyprus results therefore reflect a wider European challenge. BEREC continues to monitor whether wholesale agreements provide access to different network generations, whether operators meet quality-of-service obligations and how regulators respond to roaming complaints. Success can no longer be measured only by whether an extra charge appeared on the bill.

A sensible backup

For the majority making occasional EEA trips, the domestic mobile plan remains the simplest option. It preserves the usual phone number, calls and SMS, and requires no additional installation. A separate travel eSIM would be unnecessary for many users, particularly those whose phones lack eSIM support or who depend heavily on traditional voice and text services.

Frequent travellers may reasonably want a fallback, however. Manually selecting another permitted network can sometimes improve a weak connection, while a regional eSIM can provide a second data route when the home operator’s roaming partner disappoints.

The strongest setup is increasingly not one service replacing another, but dual-SIM resilience: the normal line remains active while an alternative data connection is ready when needed.

Conclusion

The Cypriot survey shows that European roaming is improving, but it also exposes the next stage of the market’s evolution. Operators have largely solved the billing problem; now they must solve consistency.

Traditional roaming still offers something travel eSIM providers struggle to replicate completely: continuity of number, voice, SMS and an existing customer relationship. Travel eSIMs, meanwhile, increasingly compete through flexible activation, regional plans and access to alternative partner networks. Neither model is automatically superior on every trip.

The real competitive advantage will belong to providers that make network quality visible, offer faster recovery when connections fail and give customers greater control over network selection. “Roaming Like at Home” should not merely mean that the price looks familiar. It should mean the connection feels familiar too.