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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

#321

Post by eoin_murphy »

nunobrito wrote: post #270
vmarsy wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G. Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.

Germany I'm paying 19 EUR/month with a phone included. No limits on phone calls within Germany (fixed and mobile), but I pay for each SMS sent and only get 2Gb of data.

Sorry for the derail, but who are you with in Germany for that deal? All the contracts I've seen start at at least €40.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#322

Post by tixzdk »

vmarsy wrote: post #265
rainingtomorrow wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G. Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.

I pay 15€ for unlimited everything in Denmark (but with reasonable caps imposed on European roaming)

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#323

Post by [deleted] »

vmarsy wrote: post #265
rainingtomorrow wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G. Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.

[deleted]

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#325

Post by asmosoinio »

untog wrote: post #280
tdeck wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

USA has twice the population density of Finland, for which Sami_Lehtinen quotes prices in the sibling comment.

So it's not that, or not just that at least.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#326

Post by lucaspiller »

vmarsy wrote: post #265
rainingtomorrow wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G. Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.

Lithuania: Phone plans aren't that cheap, I assume because there are only three main operators and they don't really make much money. People here don't have money for the latest iPhone which you would pay €60+/mo for, so their main source of income is service plans. Typically contracts are sold without a phone, and I'd say people would spend on average, under €10/mo. That would get you unlimited calls and texts and a few GB of data. Prepaid plans are usually a bit cheaper, I currently (a special offer for a few months) pay €3.99/mo for unlimited calls and texts and 1.5GB data.

I also have a portable 4G hotspot with unlimited data (I've used around 50GB this month) for €4.90/mo, including rental of the device. It's limited at 6 Mbit but that's fine for my needs (you can pay more for up to 25 Mbit). However the main reason why it's so cheap is because it's from a smaller operator, so you only really get coverage in big cities and even then it can be patchy (like Three when they first launched in Europe).

Home internet is a different story though. I pay €9.90/mo for unlimited 100/100 FTTH, and I can get up to 1000/1000 for €19.90/mo - downloading a 6GB Steam game in under 10 minutes seems fast enough though. In 2015 home broadband coverage (>= 30 Mbit) was 99%, with 62% of subscribers on fibre [0].

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/document.cfm?doc_id=44449

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#327

Post by donjoe »

eoin_murphy wrote: post #321
nunobrito wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany I'm paying 19 EUR/month with a phone included. No limits on phone calls within Germany (fixed and mobile), but I pay for each SMS sent and only get 2Gb of data.

Sorry for the derail, but who are you with in Germany for that deal? All the contracts I've seen start at at least €40.

They exist. Even prepaid options are getting cheaper. Take a look at discounter offers (Aldi, Lidl etc). Though don't expect great network coverage on the countryside...

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#328

Post by Someone »

jahnu wrote: post #319
kungtotte wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of roaming you get depends on your carrier and contract. We get up to 20 GB of roaming or your contract data cap, whichever is lowest. E.g. me and my wife can roam for 20 GB because our contract is for 24 GB, but if we had a 12 or 6 GB plan we could only get 12 or 6 respectively.

Right. That's why I said needlessly complicated :) Takes so much effort to work everything out. They rely on this to make profits from mistakes.

That is much harder now; they now have to warn you when you reach your limit. See question 17 on https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...: "Therefore, as long as your operator has not contacted you while abroad, you can roam like at home without any worries."

So, they still can charge lots to those who, getting warned, don't immediately stop using their phone.

It is complicated because this is a political compromise. Everybody knows where the EU wants to end up (the frequent use of 'may' in that answer is a nice indicator), but that means shifting income of operators around (in general, operators in popular holiday countries lose a substantial source of income), so it can't happen in a Big Bang operation.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#329

Post by Paul-ish »

lostlogin wrote: post #293
Paul-ish wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That logic doesn't work with telecoms, or with other big infrastructure type companies - water, power, sewerage.

Is wireless as bad as those three?

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#330

Post by geocar »

mstade wrote: post #205

This is great, now I can ditch my UK Three SIM that I've had for years simply because they implemented a "feel at home" kind of policy long ago, where roaming within the EU is free. There was always a data limit, and you can't tether your phone to your laptop which was annoying, but it's been great for me who's been travelling in the EU frequently. Now I can drop that extra £30/month cost and don't have to carry extr…

Vodafone allows 4G roaming and tether. Biggest reason I switched from three.
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