EU Roaming Download Speeds Vary Widely
Last June, the EU finally passed its “roam like home” regulations that allow EU citizens to make calls and texts and use their data in other EU member states without incurring the massive charges typically seen when roaming. Speedtest roaming report
Almost one year after the introduction of the EU’s new roaming regulations, a Speedtest study has found big discrepancies between the download speeds customers experience at home and abroad.
Speedtest, the download speed checker run by Ookla, has found that there is a noticeable drop in performance when comparing download speeds at home and when roaming. The average EU download speed when at home is 30.57Mbps but that drops to 25.50Mbps when abroad – a decrease of 16.6%. The data is based on consumer tests taken on Speedtest in the first quarter of this year.
How much download speeds drop when you cross a border Speedtest roaming report
The mean download speed in the EU when customers are at home is 30.57 Mbps, but that slows 16.6% to 25.50 Mbps when Europeans roam across a border.
Because your experience of speeds abroad is going to be based on what you’re used to, we compared countries based on the amount download speeds decreased rather than the actual speed abroad. Italians enjoyed a 15.4% increase in download speed when traveling. Estonians, Latvians, and the Portuguese also saw faster downloads abroad.
On the other end of the spectrum, Dutch travelers experienced a 52% decrease in download speed when using mobile phones elsewhere in the EU. Residents of Denmark, Luxembourg, Hungary, Belgium and Malta all saw decreases of more than 40% when roaming.
Slow or not, at least roaming no longer comes with extra fees for EU residents. Unless you’re British, of course. With Brexit looming, not only could citizens of the UK have to return to paying roaming fees, the download speed they’ll be paying for abroad will be 19.4% slower than it is at home. Speedtest roaming report