Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 359 posts

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#111

Post by Strom »

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.

This seems incorrect. I've traveled around in EU and haven't seen a single ID check for SIMs yet. Where is this happening? In my home country of Estonia we even have SIMs being given away for free on the streets as advertisement.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#112

Post by runeb »

mrweasel wrote: post #50
JoeCamel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which telcos and in which country? Everything seems fine here in Croatia.

In Denmark it seems that most are remove EU roaming. I don't think 3 is, but Telia and CBB (Telenor subsidiary) are. The CBB contract for example is adding 40DKK to the price, for EU coverage.

Telia in Norway has offered free EU roaming (GB included are also available in EU without extra cost) for about a year now.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#113

Post by matthewmacleod »

martinald wrote: post #74
matthewmacleod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the price of foreign calls will be affected – everything is simply charged at the home plan rate. Calling e.g. a French number will cost the same regardless of whether I am in France or the UK.

Incorrect. The regulation only applies when roaming. To take three UK for example: Calling Spain from the UK: 46p/min Calling Spain from France while roaming: inclusive in minutes allowance, otherwise 3p/min. I also checked Vodafone.de and it's the same thing - nearly €1/min if you're in Germany, or inclusive if you're roaming. It's a bit of a joke really. I don't know why the EU didn't think of this.

Ahah, I see. It's quite hard to see what's going on through the contract language!

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#114

Post by edgecrafter »

ipedrazas wrote: post #95
Retric wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, the rule says that you can use abroad what you've been using "at home" on a regular basis.

No, as far as I can see all dataplans (in Denmark) differentiate between "at home" and in EU allowance, e.g. I can use 8GB out of 40gb monthly in EU

Anyway, for a typical one week vacation this is a good step forward.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#115

Post by kristofferR »

mrweasel wrote: post #60
varjag wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name one European operator that does that?

Telenor in Denmark, and its subsidiaries, are removing EU roaming for some contracts, or splitting them into EU and DK contracts.

50DKK extra for double the data (20GB) and EU roaming isn't that bad.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#116

Post by tonfa »

ptaipale wrote: post #75
JoeCamel wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should check if your unlimited plan applies to roaming. I have a unlimited data plan in Croatia, but in roaming it's limited to 10 GB.

EU was planning to explicitly regulate against such caps. If you provide unlimited data in your local operator's network, having caps when roaming would be in breach of this regulation. Has that changed?

Yes, the rule is based on how much you pay for your unlimited plan compared to wholesale regulated rates.

(tho they plan to lower the regulated rates over time)

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#117

Post by k-mcgrady »

From reading this thread it seems that telecoms companies and the EU need to make it much more clear what is actually happening. Half the people commenting here have one experience and the other half have the complete opposite. It's probably difficult to know how this will all shake out for a couple of years considering most of us are locked into multi-year contracts.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#118

Post by matthewmacleod »

occamrazor wrote: post #108
morsch wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite. Providers are still free to offer contracts without any kind of roaming.

Do you have any source for this information?

This document seems to imply it, but it's not explicit: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...

Every existing or new contract that includes roaming services will change to "roam like at home" contract.

That does seem to exclude contracts that don't include roaming services.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#120

Post by Erwin »

tskaiser wrote: post #82
varjag wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Telmore's web page was confusing up until today, but my "Telmore Play" with 25 GB included has 8 GB of it usable in EU.

Apparently there's a complex "fair usage" formula that is allegedly EU mandated:

> EU Data = (abonnementspris x 2) / EU-defineret GB pris

Post reply on HN