I'm off to Europe on a HOG tour tomorrow, iPad safely packed for travelling. I phoned O2 today about data roaming. The answer? Nothing doing. "Buy a local micro sim card" was the only advice.

So I need to find a shop in each of France, Belgium, Germany & Austria to buy a micro sim card and swap as I go along. Somehow I think not Jonny Foreigner! I'll have to hope the hotels have wifi.

I got the micro SIM from an O2 store yesterday (free) and last night signed up to the PAYG version for iPad.

O2 do three different tariffs, all with no contract and no tie in; 1GB, 3GB & 5Gb (£10, £15 & £25 per month respectively)

You put the free microsim in iPad , sync with iTunes and then follow the onscreen instructions

Hope this helps

Jamie

As the OP has stated O2 only do data plans for use in the UK which is strange as you can use your iPhone abroad and I would imagine uses the same data.

The North American providers either provide no roaming (Telus, Bell, Rogers) or do but at atrocious rates (AT&T).

It is a bit more of a nuisance for those of you in Europe, where you can cross four countries in a day's driving without making a ton of effort, but I still feel your pain.

Maybe one day we'll have economical data roaming, but I plan to pick up an AT&T SIM when I'm in Buffalo, NY, USA next month and I'll get one in the UK when we go back (scheduled for 2012).

If you get an O2 SIM, can you just put it in the iPad and have it self configure (like the Bell or AT&T sims) or do you have to sync with itunes? I was planning on just travelling with the ipad, so syncing would be a problem.

With my O2 SIM I plugged it in, followed the instructions and that was that. Not sure on the roaming front, think it differs from data roaming on iPhone SIM. Good for round town when you can't pick up a wireless hotspot

You really do need to buy a sim in each country or you will get hammered on the data charges.

I'm on the iPad now in France using a hotel WiFi. The roaming simply doesn't work - as I was informed by O2.

Hi, not sure if this is the correct area to post but just bought iPad but a bit hacked off with being tied to o2 UK tarrifs. I have tried cutting down as a PAYG o2 sim and using that but keeps asking me to register the unit to a number that never answers. I have put the original o2 iPad sim back in and it works immediately. Does anyone now a way around this?