This time last year I stayed on Bardsey Island, off the Welsh Coast. There’s hardly any phone signal on the island, but they warned everyone to turn off roaming on their phones anyway. It turns out that because of the mountain on the island blocking the signal from the UK, lots of phones automatically connect to Irish providers, and cost more than people expect
The island is tiny, and only has about half a dozen houses on it. The visitors are there because it’s a nature reserve, so generally don’t want to be on their phones anyway. It’s not worth setting up a relay station over just telling everyone before they get there.
This time last year I stayed on Bardsey Island, off the Welsh Coast. There’s hardly any phone signal on the island, but they warned everyone to turn off roaming on their phones anyway. It turns out that because of the mountain on the island blocking the signal from the UK, lots of phones automatically connect to Irish providers, and cost more than people expect
It’s weird they wouldn’t work with a UK based telco to set up a relay station explicitly to prevent this.
Why prevent it, when you can just shrug your shoulders and rake in the money?
The telco likely doesnt make any extra from the roaming, they very likely pay it all out to the company the roaming took place on.
The island is tiny, and only has about half a dozen houses on it. The visitors are there because it’s a nature reserve, so generally don’t want to be on their phones anyway. It’s not worth setting up a relay station over just telling everyone before they get there.