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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

#281

Post by kabbalf »

netcan wrote: post #123
_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)?

There are free markets and then there are free markets. There are commodity markets with many producers, many consumers and product uniformity. These can be modeled very effectively using economic theories. Barley, pork bellies, silver. There are more “normal” markets with many (or at least enough) producers & consumers and nonuniform products with sufficient substitution options. Supermarkets, building supplies, spo…

It could be argued that these criteria lead to the opposite conclusion.

Many producers: maybe not, but most countries have at least 3 [1]. Not worse than e.g. major grocery store chains or gas stations. Many consumers: definitely Product uniformity: significant--I don't care how my 1 mb of data or 1 min of talk is routed

The key anti-free market characteristic is arguably the limited amount of frequency spectrum, which is allocated via centralized auctions. Yet I don't recall hearing similar complaints about the radio or TV industries in Europe.

A lot of the arguments in this thread are that the market is inefficient and therefore must be regulated, but is this the right path if the inefficiencies are due to regulation in the first place?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operato...

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#282

Post by dheera »

rekshaw wrote: post #221

A lot of people complaining here. I am based in Luxembourg currently, and went to London last week. The peace of mind of landing in a foreign city and being able to use your phone as if at home truly is incredible. I could really feel the barriers to traveling fading. (Ironic that it was London, I know). BTW, my Luxembourghish telco actually aligned with the EU directive ahead of time (June 1st).

Agreed. I now use Google Fi (free roaming in 150 countries) but that didn't use to exist.

When I was doing an internship in Switzerland about 9 years ago I often travelled to nearby countries on weekends and internet access was always a problem. Free Wi-Fi was largely nonexistent back then, and roaming charges were upwards of USD15 per megabyte (yes, mega). Simply trying to use Google Maps to get to a hostel might cost more than the cost of staying at the hostel. And being on a prepaid plan, there was always the risk of accidentally clicking on an ad and burning up all of the quota that I purchased, leaving me stranded without internet access.

I relied mostly on printed paper maps that summer.

I always thought it made zero sense in a part of the world where crossing country borders could be an everyday occurrence especially if you live close to a border.

I also thought it made absolutely zero sense that the various Oranges and various T-Mobiles of different countries don't have free roaming plans with each other. Why didn't Orange UK, Orange France, Orange Switzerland, Orange Egypt, Orange Romania, etc. work together to give free calls and free internet access on each others' networks, routing everything over IP? They could have won over a bunch of business customers by doing that and killed some competitors.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#283

Post by jdavis703 »

mullen wrote: post #261
rekshaw wrote: post #221

A lot of people complaining here. I am based in Luxembourg currently, and went to London last week. The peace of mind of landing in a foreign city and being able to use your phone as if at home truly is incredible. I could really feel the barriers to traveling fading. (Ironic that it was London, I know). BTW, my Luxembourghish telco actually aligned with the EU directive ahead of time (June 1st).

As an American who likes to travel to Europe, this is a godsend. I can buy a pre-paid SIM before I leave America and then use it all over Europe. Getting a TIM (Italy, 35 Euro for one month) SIM was a real pain in the ass and I would love to have found somewhere else to make the process much easier and cheaper.

You could also just use Google's Project Fi. My biggest complaint about them is it takes about 10 minutes to get an LTE connection when switching continents (which is basically to say I have no complaints).

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#284

Post by literallycancer »

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.…

Imagine you had to pay extra when calling someone in a different state in the US (like it used to be with landlines). Why would anyone want to go back to that? Except the telephony providers, of course.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#285

Post by yehat »

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…

I can only upvote this. Exactly the same in Bulgaria. Now telcos don't include the mobile internet as they did previously. If you're to to retain the same amount of data, you have to pay more more expensive plan. The paradox here is there're plans with say 400MB national megabytes, but 1200MB in roaming! Due to the weird formula implied for calculating the limit of data in roaming - related only to the cost of monthly bill you have.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#287

Post by linkregister »

rainingtomorrow wrote: post #140
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…

Latvia and Lithuania have literally the cheapest telco services in Europe. It's no surprise that we have to pay a bit more now. Yes, we lose this time, but for the rest of the Europe it's a huge win.

You win in the aggregate, because Latvian and Lithuanian exporters and importers now have less friction when traveling. Likely a rise in trade, leading to more company and tax revenue, leading to higher employment.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#288

Post by yehat »

czr80 wrote: post #175
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…

This doesn't really make sense - what was stopping them from raising prices before, if people are really willing to pay 3-4 EUR more?

As I stated also above - this raise is not only observed in Latvia, Lithuania, but across eastern countries in EU as well. You ask about the reason - how about "let's try to compensate the loses", or "let's try as a preventive action", etc. Now - I believe they are not going to keep this long down the road. You said "if people are willing to pay", but that should really be the question - are they? We'll see. I personally will downgrade my plan, as a reaction to theirs. What is important and strange, that even with less national data, there is a lot more in roaming.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#289

Post by literallycancer »

_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)?

The available frequencies are limited, this means new companies can't enter the market.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#290

Post by yehat »

andriussev wrote: post #155
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…

Comparing, in Lithuania, nothing much has changed in regards to local prices but for EU, they actually still provide separate additional packages. The best one for internet seems to be 3eur/1GB.

That's right, however check the terms of each package, you probably will find that those are under "alternative terms" which are allowed in the new regulation, and if you accept, they take precedence.
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