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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

#241

Post by john61 »

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…

The idea was not to lower prices, but to align mobile pricing to basic EU freedoms:

* Free movement of persons

* Freedom to establish and provide services

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#242

Post by tpm »

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.…

Also mobile operators are mostly huge corporations with subsidiaries in many EU countries and 'roaming' inside their own networks adds mostly zero additional costs. Which is exactly what they should have charged their customers until now (some did, but these were exceptions).

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#244

Post by janywer »

filleokus wrote: post #171
Symbiote wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard monthly contract price, 150kr/month or whatever, is the big number that customers look at when signing a contract. It's where the companies compete, so they can't increase the prices beyond a reasonable amount. There's no longer the hidden cost of being caught with a bill for 500kr after returning from a European holiday.

That's true, and I agree that the high bill is nice to avoid. But also, I think it's classic pro-regulation-people to be surprised by companies levying the fee on the end customers. I guess also, that for most consumers, they would rather have some other system (reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data?) for those European holidays instead of paying 10-30 SEK extra per month, for ever. I would guess most people don't…

There wasn't a good, reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data, at least not with my German contract. 150MB of roaming in the EU was 5€ with the purchase process (via SMS) being bugged and failing 50% of the time, sometimes charging my credit card instantly while delivering the "You can use your roaming data now" message days later when I was back home, customer support could not help because they "do not suggest that the data is available instantly". n=1, obviously.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#245

Post by [deleted] »

olegkikin wrote: post #162
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…

Our operator in Italy doubled the prices.

[deleted]

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#247

Post by rsync »

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…

"Edited: It's interesting to see how comment which states facts, can get upvoted and downvoted this much."

I downvoted you because you talked about your downvotes.

Write your comment and live with the results - don't interrupt the discussion to complain about your score.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#248

Post by tpm »

martinald wrote: post #74
matthewmacleod wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the price of foreign calls will be affected – everything is simply charged at the home plan rate. Calling e.g. a French number will cost the same regardless of whether I am in France or the UK.

Incorrect. The regulation only applies when roaming. To take three UK for example: Calling Spain from the UK: 46p/min Calling Spain from France while roaming: inclusive in minutes allowance, otherwise 3p/min. I also checked Vodafone.de and it's the same thing - nearly €1/min if you're in Germany, or inclusive if you're roaming. It's a bit of a joke really. I don't know why the EU didn't think of this.

EU mostly regulates inter-state commerce, not internal markets in countries, that's the job for the local regulators.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#249

Post by ptaipale »

ko27 wrote: post #196
ptaipale wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "slightly". There's a considerable imbalance.

Source?

Wikipedia, in the tourism article, links to WTO:

http://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284418145

Million tourist visits per million population:

  Finland: 2.7/5.5 = 0.49
  Sweden: 10.5/9.9 = 1.06

  Spain: 68.2/46.5 = 1.47
  Greece: 23.6/10.8 = 2.19
(I quoted above Italy, which does not have that high visitor/pop ratio, but you get the idea.)

And about current competitiveness of operators, World Bank data at http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/where-are-cheapest-and-m...

Percentage of income going to operate a mobile phone:

  Finland: 0.34
  Sweden: 0.38 

  Spain: 1.52
  Greece: 0.49
And this with typically restrictive data quotas in southern Europe, and no data caps in the north.

I.e. the new EU regulation punishes competitive markets severely. But yes, it might help the economy of southern EU countries by making it attractive for them to acquire operators from north, get rid of competition and start the same level of extraction they do on their own population.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#250

Post by bluGill »

watson wrote: post #199
_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)?

Look at the most free market of them all with the least regulation: United States. Here using a mobile phone is WAAAY more expensive than in Europe. My US friends always thinks I'm lying when I tell them how little we pay for data in EU.

In the US nearly everyone has no cost roaming and long distance coast to coast. Having a set phone budget is worth more to me than lower costs. I have friends who have gone for the much cheaper budget plan that only covers their local area: they love it for two months then hit a situation where either it doesn't work or they are get a big bill because they forget they traveled to a roaming area.

As other have pointed out the population density works against us a little too. Having service when I visit remote places is worth a lot too.

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