I've always hated roaming charges, especially within Europe. This is WIN.
European roaming charges will end in 2014
81–90 of 105 posts
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes: of course this benefits large, incumbent service providers. Smaller providers will find it difficult to compete now that they are obliged to offer the same level of service, at the same cost, to people travelling throughout the EU. This ultimately excludes the possibility of cheaper local services: I find it a surprising move from the EU who should act to prevent anti-competitive practices.
There's nothing saying that they have to provide coverage, just the same price.
A new upstart has Hobson's choice between:
- being price-fixed locally by Vodafone's pan-European wholesale prices and therefore being unable to compete effectively.
or: - forbidding customers roaming coverage and therefore being unable to compete effectively.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certain Starbucks branches in some countries don't have free wifi. (I know for a fact that the one 100m away from me right now doesn't.)
Starbucks at Berkeley St. in London doesn´t have free wifi, you have to buy credit. I don´t know the rest of the starbucks in London are the same..
So far I haven't found any starbucks that wouldn't have free wifi in London. Well, apart from the small wooden one at the Liverpool street station enterance (but that is to be expected sincie it's a, well, a wooden box:)
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm under the impression that I would be able to use my plan from one country in another without regard for whether I'm actually roaming or not, for no extra cost. This would include data, and would be excellent for me (at the moment at least) considering I have a cheap unlimited data plan. I've seen it stated elsewhere that one of the ambitions of this plan is increased competition across borders, for example, opera…
That is what they seem to be promising (and we all know that then politicians promise something, that's how it's going to be). It's not clear how it will be implemented, and it's not clear why a dutch provider should honor a commitment for unlimited data that a UK provider has made to you.
Yes, and what happens if a provider in some small country sets up a limited network for very cheap with the intention of the majority of it's users being in different countries and thus other companies footing the bill.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I'm learning that Germany is an exception. It's not just major cities in the rest of Europe, though. In Sweden you can find free wifi even in small towns, because every 7-11 and every McDonald's in the whole country provides it, not to mention most coffee shops and libraries.
Sweden is exceptionally socialist even by European standards. I can well believe free wifi would be common there, and in the rest of scandinavia, but not in "mainland" Europe.
I suppose I don't see how multinational corporations like McDonald's or 7-11 providing wifi has a socialist angle to it. Isn't that more just the free market operating? They offer wifi because they think it brings in business, and the Scandinavian countries have fairly free markets that don't stand in their way when they want to do so. The German-style regulations discouraging establishments from offering wifi through onerous regulations seem to be the more statist outliers.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is what they seem to be promising (and we all know that then politicians promise something, that's how it's going to be). It's not clear how it will be implemented, and it's not clear why a dutch provider should honor a commitment for unlimited data that a UK provider has made to you.
Yes, and what happens if a provider in some small country sets up a limited network for very cheap with the intention of the majority of it's users being in different countries and thus other companies footing the bill.
If I understand this correctly, it is supposed to be free to the customer, not the provider. So it is not about whether provider A pays provider B if A's users roam in B's network, but whether A's users pay more to A while roaming.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems that you haven't traveled to Germany yet. Public Wifi is barely available because of legal risks and hotels still try to charge you something like 10 euro for a day of internet access. When I went to Dublin in Ireland the situation was almost as bad.
On the hotel WiFis, the rule of thumb seems to be that the more expensive the hotel, the costlier and crappier the WiFi will be . Most cheap family-run hotels and all hostels have free and good WiFi.
This. Hostels world-wide in allegedly 3rd world countries regularly have free wifi - and fast! Yet in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, first-world western countries, free-wifi is rubbish or non-existent on the whole.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#88This is still at the very high-level discussion stage. The key phrase: "“They agreed that this time next year we will have got rid of these charges,” a Brussels source said" Also, it's not clear how this would be implemented. For example, Vodafone in the UK lets you pay £3 a day and use your calls, texts and data from Europe. Would that be acceptable? What happens to the smaller MVNOs who have been responsible for dr…
> If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this. It will cost them very little to provide the service, mostly some modifications to their billing system.
I suspect it's more complicated than this, or they'd be more integrated already. My operator, Hutchinson Three (3) used to let their users roam in all the other worldwide 3 networks at no cost (UK, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Australia, etc) called 3LikeHome, but they eventually terminated it, claiming that due to their package roaming agreements (I've had it explained to me that most operators buy a roaming agreement bundle from a consolidator instead of negotiating one by one themselves), they couldn't limit their service in those countries to only roam on 3, and customers would continually roam onto other networks and rack up huge bills thinking they were connected to 3.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think I'd go that far! It's an added convenience, but my data already moves with me through the EU, since non-phone internet access (coffee shops, libraries, McDonald's, 7-11, hotels, etc.) is pretty widespread.
It seems that you haven't traveled to Germany yet. Public Wifi is barely available because of legal risks and hotels still try to charge you something like 10 euro for a day of internet access. When I went to Dublin in Ireland the situation was almost as bad.
I believe the reasoning is solid: most high-priced consultants and business travelers stay at decent hotels, and the $10/day is an easily expensed item.
Sucks for those of us who also like higher end hotels for personal travel, though.
Re: European roaming charges will end in 2014
#90Some operators already offer flat rate packages for several countries. E.g. my operator the Finnish-Swedish TeliaSonera offers me unlimited data, calls and sms for Fennoscandia (fi, se, dk, no) and the Baltic countries.