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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

#351

Post by vsl »

grasshopper12a wrote: post #260
akerro wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So richer western countries win, you will pay more and it's ok?

Yeah, Lithuania and Latvia receive a lot of cash from the EU to upgrade their infrastructure. It's not all black or white, but this doesn't seem like a big issue when you see the support the country received.

That "support" (I.e. Donations) goes to politically well connected companies, burns some 20% on well-connected middlemen and has to be co-funded. Some first hand experience with how harmful and ineffective the donations are would do you good.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#352

Post by mvindahl »

jamaicahest wrote: post #339
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 happened in Denmark. Several operators advertised a rise in prices with the exact reasoning: To pay for the loss of roaming charges. They actually advertised that the price rise was to pay for their lost income, as if to somehow try to gather sympathy from the average customer.

Fortunately, some telcos didn't. My wife made the switch from Telmore to Oister due to being annoyed with Telmore's price hike. It was the proverbial straw I guess ..

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#353

Post by evandijk70 »

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 is not what happened in the Netherlands. I just renewed my contract, and it is a lot cheaper now. I pay 12,50 euro per month for 200 min/sms and 5 gb of data, whereas the same plan used to be around 16,50. They are advertising this plan everywhere.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#354

Post by _Tev »

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…

We (Czechs) have relatively expensive plans that are slowly getting cheaper over time. And this roamimg-cancelling didn't affect that trend at all ...

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#355

Post by rdl »

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.

Germany (O2) had an obnoxious check. The dude bitched at me because I had a copy of my passport "saved in the cloud" (it was in 1Password local on my phone; given that the US, RU, CN, JP, UA, MY etc governments all have copies of my passport already, it's a whole lot less sensitive than anything else I have in a local-only encrypted database on my phone. It took about 30m to go through the process.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#356

Post by NamTaf »

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…

I users UK 3 for 8 weeks through Europe last year and it was a godsend. Even better, about 3 weeks prior to my trip they plugged the black holes I had worried about by covering a whole heap of extra countries. They made it possible for me to simply use my phone anywhere I went there and that was honestly game-changing for my travel and fundamental for how I'd planned my trip. It was slow but it was fast enough for turn by turn maps and that's exactly what I needed since I spent a month driving wherever I felt.

No other plan offered such comprehensive roaming at the time, so I had a mate fly a SIM over from the UK for me when I arrived in Germany.

This change will be a huge boon for travellers especially. I can see how for some cheap telcos it could cause harm though.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#357

Post by NamTaf »

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…

I users UK 3 for 8 weeks through Europe last year and it was a godsend. Even better, about 3 weeks prior to my trip they plugged the black holes I had worried about by covering a whole heap of extra countries. They made it possible for me to simply use my phone anywhere I went there and that was honestly game-changing for my travel and fundamental for how I'd planned my trip. It was slow but it was fast enough for turn by turn maps and that's exactly what I needed since I spent a month driving wherever I felt.

No other plan offered such comprehensive roaming at the time, so I had a mate fly a SIM over from the UK for me when I arrived in Germany.

This change will be a huge boon for travellers especially. I can see how for some cheap telcos it could cause harm though.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#358

Post by tripzilch »

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…

> What are downvotes representing?

in your case, you're the top comment thread on a front page article. it probably represents "I would like to see a different thread at the top", and you shouldn't take it personally, it might even be because they don't like the discussion happening as reply below your posts.

either that, or idiots. they hide in numbers.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#359

Post by nunobrito »

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.

Oops, just saw this question now. I've registered with https://www.otelo.de/ after seeing their publicity on TV two years ago and they still seem to have available these promotions.

They have several phone models to choose. You pay 1 EUR for most models from Samsung or Sony, a bit more for the deluxe editions (iphone and sorts). Now they even offer more because SMS are free and I still pay extra for each one, but doesn't matter because I simply use other messaging apps.

The Sony Xperia models are good, they're waterproof by default and resistant to shocks, albeit camera is crappy (compared to normal Samsung models)

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