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Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

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Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#81

Post by samastur »

ptaipale wrote: post #27
glebm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roaming costs are price gouging, the associated costs of providing roaming are nowhere near.

However, now EU regulates the price to consumers to be lower than the wholesale price of roaming charges between operators. That is a failure. They should regulate the wholesale price. In practice: I pay 20 € per month for unlimited mobile data. If I go to Italy and use my subscription there, I still pay 20 € per month for unlimited mobile data, but my operator has to pay 7 € per gigabyte to the Italian roaming partn…

It doesn't work like this. Your EU guaranteed roaming mobile data package is limited to 2*monthly bill/wholesale-price-per-GB. So in your case that looks like 40/7.7 which is about 5GB. Anything beyond that your telco CAN charge you (but doesn't have to) by usage. I am not sure what that charge can be, but it is per KB spent and is calculate from wholesale price per GB.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#82

Post by tskaiser »

varjag wrote: post #41
mrweasel wrote: post #14

Yeah, the telcos have already found a way out. They simply remove EU roaming from their standard subscriptions and it now becomes an add-on. So if you want to use your phone in a different country during the holidays, you'll need an EU roaming subscription. The politicians once again failed to be sufficient precise in formulating a law that would produce the decided result. They should have added a clause that state…

Can you name one European operator that does that?

Telmore in Denmark (my current operator) first gave my subscription a price hike to "compensate" for the new roaming rules and then advertised that I could change to a "Denmark only" subscription for the old price.

It seems this option is now gone, however instead I now have separate data limits between Denmark and EU, with the latter being substantially less (only 5 GB, "calculated based on your subscription").

When I'm a bit less stressed I think I'll start shopping around for another operator :^)

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#83

Post by matthewmacleod »

pulse7 wrote: post #47
mrweasel wrote: post #14

Yeah, the telcos have already found a way out. They simply remove EU roaming from their standard subscriptions and it now becomes an add-on. So if you want to use your phone in a different country during the holidays, you'll need an EU roaming subscription. The politicians once again failed to be sufficient precise in formulating a law that would produce the decided result. They should have added a clause that state…

This is not possible! The rule is clear: in every EU country you can use your mobile phone under the same conditions as in your base country (with some minor exceptions mostly for mobile data). Telcos not obeying this rule will be fined (or may even lose Radio Frequency License if not willing to obey).

I'm not completely sure that's true – it's possible that an operator might simply choose not to offer roaming at all with their basic plans, requiring an add-on to allow roaming.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#84

Post by Retric »

endijs wrote: post #63

This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in…

If roaming is free, can't you just use another countries cellphone provider? And if so, it's likely the cheapest country needed to raise rates should people from more expensive areas do so.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#85

Post by matteuan »

endijs wrote: post #63

This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in…

The european antitrust should punish this behaviour!

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#86

Post by filleokus »

endijs wrote: post #63

This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in…

Same thing happening in Sweden as well. Many people in the comments here are saying that their bills haven't been raised, but at least here in Sweden the price are only raised for new contracts.

There is also (AFAIK) some limits on this. I.e, you cannot get a contract in a cheap neighbouring country and use it all the time roaming from you home country. To unify all EU telco markets and increase competition between carriers might be a long term goal of the legislator, but as far as I can tell, right now it's only really applicable for travel.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#87

Post by ptaipale »

imartin2k wrote: post #39
mrweasel wrote: post #14

Yeah, the telcos have already found a way out. They simply remove EU roaming from their standard subscriptions and it now becomes an add-on. So if you want to use your phone in a different country during the holidays, you'll need an EU roaming subscription. The politicians once again failed to be sufficient precise in formulating a law that would produce the decided result. They should have added a clause that state…

You are probably way too negative. Yeah, some telcos are looking for ways around it, and some plans will become a bit more expensive, temporarily. However, there is healthy competetion in most European telecoms markets. So it is very likely that over the mid term, competition will push prices down. Why is it so damn hard to be happy about a giant step forward, just because it doesn't happen in the most perfect way? (…

It's particularly those telcos who are already extremely competitive (mostly, the Nordics) who particularly need to start looking at these ways around, because otherwise they'll be subsidizing the top line of the countries where their little-paying customers often travel.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#88

Post by matteuan »

Retric wrote: post #84
endijs wrote: post #63

This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in…

If roaming is free, can't you just use another countries cellphone provider? And if so, it's likely the cheapest country needed to raise rates should people from more expensive areas do so.

No https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#89

Post by slindz »

panzer_wyrm wrote: post #62
rdl wrote: post #17

What is the correct European SIM to buy for data/voice/etc. (prepaid)? Presumably best to get one from a country you don't actually visit much, so you're always roaming, and thus don't pay the home to foreign number charges?

Uk three. Uk is the only sane (at least on this topic) country left in the EU in which you could buy a sim card without photo id.

I bought two SIM cards while travelling this month, one in Estonia, one in Latvia.

No ID checks at either. Felt nice.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#90

Post by samastur »

ptaipale wrote: post #68
vesinisa wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abolishing of roaming charges also applies between operators. As the true technical cost for roaming is negligible there is really no passing of charges from those who use it to those who don't.

Is this a recent change? I hadn't heard of such. So, e.g. Telia doesn't have to pay any roaming charge to WIND Hellas if a Telia customer from Sweden goes to Greece and connects that network? Previously I heard a cap of 7 € per gigabyte for data fees was regulated.

Charge still is regulated to 7.7EUR per GB, but that is not its cost. Cost is indeed negligible as data is mostly transferred on exactly the same networks as the rest of Internet traffic in EU and nobody sane argues that you should pay 7 EUR for each GB you transfer.

If I divide my monthly internet bill with the amount of data I transfer during it, then price of GB of data transfer is indeed close to nothing.

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