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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

#271

Post by nunobrito »

HNBRN wrote: post #132
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…

However the situation is much better now. It was very common for us French people to discover a huge roaming bill after a trip in another European country. At least roaming cost are becoming predictable

Yep. Still remember when I got charged 8 EUR just for being close to the border with the Czech Republic but still within our side of the border.

They made a lot of money with this roaming business.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#272

Post by will_hughes »

stingraycharles wrote: post #263
will_hughes wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the case of a small national telco that happens to have a large number of incoming tourists. There's an additional burden on their network, and they should be able to recoup some of that cost. But almost every carrier I've seen would charge extortionate rates - hundreds or thousands of times the price they would charge their local customers for.

Small telcos rarely handle these things themselves and instead resell bigger telcos. If anything, I hope this triggers an investment in optimising this infrastructure; if i can use the internet without caring where the physical servers are, so should my phone be.

Sorry, when I said 'small national telco' I meant a telco for a small nation.

If they have no way to recoup the additional cost of all the incoming visitors, then they can't invest in expanding infrastructure.

It's probably a pretty limited scenario though.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#273

Post by Paul-ish »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #203
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…

That kind of thing used to happen in Israel too. Every time the government introduced a new regulation aiming to reduce mobile costs, the three companies would respond by simultaneously raising prices. And then the government used the nuclear option--They licensed two new mobile operators. And the prices plummeted.

Why is that the nuclear option? I would expect more competition to be the go to solution.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#274

Post by nunobrito »

Strom wrote: post #111
panzer_wyrm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In Portugal the ID is needed for the large operators (e.g. Vodafone). Not sure but likely not needed for Lyca and such.

In Germany you can buy SIM cards on the local supermarket, no ID requested.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#275

Post by kybernetikos »

quickben wrote: post #92
_miroz wrote: post #38

I'm wondering why the regulation was necessary and why the free market forces didn't bring the prices or roaming down? What are the forces in telecom industry that kept the prices so high (assuming that the prices were higher then necessary)?

Because it's an overused phrase that doesn't mean what most people think it means. "Free market" is heavily used as a propaganda. Back when I took few economy courses, we went over numerous real world examples on how big companies price fix. Sometimes you can have eight players and they'll still agree to fix prices. This wasn't dry theory, this was golf meeting to raise prices by 50% , fishing trips where pieces of p…

> People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith The wealth of nations

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#276

Post by patrickk »

mamon wrote: post #166
gmac wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a confusopoly[1] and roaming charges (like data overage charges) weren't part of the headline offer, which was generally UNLIMITED calls and texts and a FREE phone when you pay £X per month . Same as 'free' banking in the UK, which is in reality heavily cross-subsidised by the poorest customers paying overdraft penalties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly

Roaming is relatively niche, but very expensive product, compared to other telecommunication services, so in my opinion it was fair to charge additional fee for that. Now that EU regulation is in place mobile operators are no longer allowed to charge the additional cost to people actually using roaming, they have to spread it across all their customers. So, net effect will be: poor people who do not use roaming (e.g.…

> So, net effect will be: poor people who do not use roaming (e.g. because they cannot afford vacations abroad) will pay for the convenience of middle and higher class people who travel a lot.

You'd have to be fairly destitute to not be able to afford to travel within Europe[1]. For example, even people on social welfare in the UK and Ireland can afford cheap sun holidays to Spain or wherever.

[1] https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/cheap-flight-destinations

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#277

Post by kabbalf »

mamon wrote: post #173
belorn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

free market forces is great when the is information symmetry between buyer and seller. In that world no person would ever be surprised when the phone bill is sent. Now the question is, how many consumers knew roaming prices (for places which they would travel to) when they had the opportunity to compare companies and made the decision to enter into contract with a phone company. If the answer is almost everyone then…

There was another issue: most people don't travel very often, so roaming prices weren't even considered when signing contract with mobile operator. And when you do finally decide to go for that dreamed of vacation abroad you won't be switching your operator just for that purpose. So you just agreed to whatever roaming plan your current vendor had to offer. And then used your phone only for absolutely urgent things wh…

Put another way: most consumers don't care about roaming; if they did they would consider it when signing a contract. So why should the EU force roaming on everybody instead of letting operators offer products tailored to the individuals?

Whether the market is currently competitive or not, this move will result in less competition as there is more price fixing and less room for operators to differentiate their offerings.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#279

Post by pgeorgi »

mamon wrote: post #166
gmac wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's a confusopoly[1] and roaming charges (like data overage charges) weren't part of the headline offer, which was generally UNLIMITED calls and texts and a FREE phone when you pay £X per month . Same as 'free' banking in the UK, which is in reality heavily cross-subsidised by the poorest customers paying overdraft penalties. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusopoly

Roaming is relatively niche, but very expensive product, compared to other telecommunication services, so in my opinion it was fair to charge additional fee for that. Now that EU regulation is in place mobile operators are no longer allowed to charge the additional cost to people actually using roaming, they have to spread it across all their customers. So, net effect will be: poor people who do not use roaming (e.g.…

> Roaming is relatively niche

From the EU's perspective that was a problem, limiting 2 of 4 aspects in the single market's stated goal of free movement of goods, services, people and capital, namely services and people.

Services are still somewhat limited (you can't just buy the Latvian 15€/month service as a German in Germany, telcos made sure of that), but given the reliance of contemporary folks on connectivity, it helps somewhat on the "free movement of people" bit.

> net effect will be: poor people who do not use roaming (e.g. because they cannot afford vacations abroad)

There's a contingent in European's poor (from Eastern Europe) that works abroad (Western Europe) and benefits from not having to deal with roaming anymore.

(also, from my experience from when I was poor[0], it can be ridiculously cheap to have a few days of international vacation within the EU)

[0] poor being relative, but I think most official metrics would have covered me.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#280

Post by untog »

tdeck wrote: post #266
Shalle135 wrote: post #262

Moving more freely in EU why are people against that? Sure LT, LV, Poland, Romania etc probably got a slight raise. At the same time these countries are heavily subsidized by the rest of the countries already. What they also have is alot of people working abroad… so then they are allowed to surf with their cheap plans in not so cheap countries. I can also note that this law has resulted in alot more unlimited plans.…

As an American I was shocked at how cheap cell phone plans already are in Europe. You can get a great 4GB data SIM for like 10 euros, where it would easily be several times that in the US. My Verizon unlimited plan is $86/month per person, and even that is a special thing that's grandfathered in.

It's not so bad if you shop around. T-Mobile has a PAYG SIM card that is $30/month for 5GB of data, unlimited texts and 100 minutes of calls.

I suspect part of the difference in price is due to geography - the US has vast, vast areas of unpopulated land that people still want to receive cell coverage in. Europe has less of that. It would be interesting to see the customer response to a new US network that I'd cheaper but only covers major metro areas.

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