EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges • Hacker News Board

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#21

Post by dodders » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

atmosx wrote: post #15

acjohnson55 wrote: post #7

It strikes me that the EU and the USA are really going in different directions in governmental philosophy. The EU seems to be moving toward regulation to assure QoS (if you will) for consumers and harmonization across jurisdictions, relying on business to make do within centrally established frameworks. The USA, on the other hand, is moving toward empowerment of established interests and relying on self-organization…

> It strikes me that the EU and the USA are really going in different directions in governmental philosophy. You don't have the right perspective: The EU project since 2008 has show all of its flaws. It has been heavily jeopardized and it's in the brink of collapse. All these politicians in Brussels are not directly elected. Actually there's a huge discussion if they should be considered elected or appointed . Since…

> All these politicians in Brussels are not directly elected.

I don't believe that's correct. Since 1979, every member state has elected MEPs.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#22

Post by sveme » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 5:14 PM UTC

mlent wrote: post #9

sveme wrote: post #5

I said it before in the other thread, but I guess it's worth reemphasizing: The abolishment of roaming charges is huge and could really establish a single telecoms market. This point has somehow been lost in all the excitement and discussions about net neutrality. Why is this huge? The differences between domestic rates and non-domestic rates are what kept the European Telecoms market from becoming truly European. As…

But wouldn't it cost other people more money who want to get in touch with you if you did decide to go with a "non-domestic" carrier? For instance, if I have a non-German phone number, while living in Germany, and expecting people around here to call and text me? Or does that too fall under "roaming"? To me I think of roaming as being that I, with my German number, can still call and text other German numbers, and us…

I was wondering about that as well so I checked (see the write-up):

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Update: Someone on Hackernews argued that international charges would still apply. However, according to this [1]:

"International call charges would be capped at the price of a long-distance domestic call and intra-EU mobile calls at €0.19 per minute (plus VAT)."

there would be no difference between domestic and (EU-)international, eventually creating the coveted single market.

From Ryan Heath, spokesman of Neelie Kroes:

(Sven @1sveme)

@RyanHeathEU would the new roaming rule mean that a truly single market would be created? Could an Austrian company compete in Germany?

(Ryan Heath @RyanHeathEU)

@1sveme yes. You could buy your mobile subscription from another EU country and a company could easily set up in another country

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[1] http://ec.europa.eu/news/science/130916_en.htm

(update: edited for clarity, damn, I don't get those formatting possibilities on HN)

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#23

Post by fosap » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:33 PM UTC

silon5 wrote: post #12

DougWebb wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being pessimistic... as the European Telecoms becomes "truly European", the carriers will probably start merging. Eventually you'll wind up where we are in the US, with a couple of huge carriers, a moderately sized carrier, and some small carriers that barely count. And then they'll start colluding, and providing poor service because they don't have to compete anymore. Welcome to the club.

It's about time to progressively tax (VAT, not profit) companies in "monopoly" markets.

In germany companies in monopoly markets (e.g. power transmission) have a fixed profit margin (I think 10%).

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#24

Post by sentenza » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:45 PM UTC

Mexxer wrote: post #4

spindritf wrote: post #2

Paying the same rate at home as abroad is huge. I don't think I have ever experienced throttling but roaming charges make your phone almost entirely useless few kilometres beyond the border. You have to switch SIM cards, or chase WiFi. And the new regulation will include data[1]. One thing that worries me is what this means for small, local providers who often have great rates but are not backed by any of the EU-wide…

This is a huge step. But the EU states still have to agree on that. So it will probably still take many months for a final decision.

We are in the lucky position, however, that there is an EU parliament election coming up. Since the national parties feel quite embarrassed if their representatives don't perform, nobody will be willing to oppose the immensely popular move to abolish roaming.

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#25

Post by SEMW » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 6:54 PM UTC

Title is wrong. It hasn't been "voted into law". It's passed its second reading in the European Parliament. Since the EP proposed amendments, it must now go back to the Council of Ministers for a second reading there. If they approve the EP's amendments, then it will become law; if not it'll go to a conciliation committee for the Parliament and Council to hash out their differences.

The article sort-of acknowledges this on the last line, but that doesn't excuse the title.

(It's this error that gave e.g. the several dozen "UK gay marriage law passes!" stories we got spread out over a six month period. Apparently the media keeps forgetting that legislative procedures take a long time and involves lots of votes at various stages, and runs a "X voted into law!11one" story at each stage...)

Re: EU votes net neutrality into law, abolishes mobile roaming charges

#26

Post by talideon » Thu, Apr 03, 2014, 7:51 PM UTC

sveme wrote: post #5

I said it before in the other thread, but I guess it's worth reemphasizing: The abolishment of roaming charges is huge and could really establish a single telecoms market. This point has somehow been lost in all the excitement and discussions about net neutrality. Why is this huge? The differences between domestic rates and non-domestic rates are what kept the European Telecoms market from becoming truly European. As…

The thing is, there effectively has been a lot of consolidation of the EU telecoms market, even with its fragmentation due to roaming tariffs. The only thing is that the likes of Vodafone, Telefónica, Orange, Deutsche Telekom, TeliaSonera, Tele2, Hutchison Whampoa, Telenor, Airtel, Swisscom, &c., have had to establish subsidiaries in the various member states up until this point, and what we're likely to see is that the parent companies will start consolidating their national subsidiaries.

I doubt we'll end up with anything near as bad as the situation in the US, where they're left with effectively four operators of note operating two incompatible sets of standards, given the EU's greater overall diversity: language barriers, if nothing else, place limits on population migration, so smaller telcos with a firm footing in a particular market might be protected from larger multinationals eating their lunch completely.