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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

#261

Post by mullen »

rekshaw wrote: post #221

A lot of people complaining here. I am based in Luxembourg currently, and went to London last week. The peace of mind of landing in a foreign city and being able to use your phone as if at home truly is incredible. I could really feel the barriers to traveling fading. (Ironic that it was London, I know). BTW, my Luxembourghish telco actually aligned with the EU directive ahead of time (June 1st).

As an American who likes to travel to Europe, this is a godsend. I can buy a pre-paid SIM before I leave America and then use it all over Europe. Getting a TIM (Italy, 35 Euro for one month) SIM was a real pain in the ass and I would love to have found somewhere else to make the process much easier and cheaper.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#262

Post by Shalle135 »

Moving more freely in EU why are people against that? Sure LT, LV, Poland, Romania etc probably got a slight raise. At the same time these countries are heavily subsidized by the rest of the countries already. What they also have is alot of people working abroad… so then they are allowed to surf with their cheap plans in not so cheap countries.

I can also note that this law has resulted in alot more unlimited plans. I myself have just gotten one which includes 30gb of roaming. Is it cheaper than before? Hell no. Do I have to care about how much I surf, when or where? Not anymore - and freedom is worth the extra €20.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#263

Post by stingraycharles »

will_hughes wrote: post #255
Thimothy wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is expensive? I get that in the times of analog cable, connection centers between different countries networks were cumbersome, and a service that needed to be payed exclusively by those that used it, but these days of interconnected everything? I have still to see a reason in this thread that justifies the higher prices. If connections between different companies in a country work without significant cost, why i…

Consider the case of a small national telco that happens to have a large number of incoming tourists. There's an additional burden on their network, and they should be able to recoup some of that cost. But almost every carrier I've seen would charge extortionate rates - hundreds or thousands of times the price they would charge their local customers for.

Small telcos rarely handle these things themselves and instead resell bigger telcos. If anything, I hope this triggers an investment in optimising this infrastructure; if i can use the internet without caring where the physical servers are, so should my phone be.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#264

Post by rama_dan »

_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)?

It's because there are no free market forces affecting telecoms, because they're a state-maintained cartel.

It's the same with ISPs and banks, etc.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#265

Post by vmarsy »

rainingtomorrow wrote: post #140
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…

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.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#266

Post by tdeck »

Shalle135 wrote: post #262

Moving more freely in EU why are people against that? Sure LT, LV, Poland, Romania etc probably got a slight raise. At the same time these countries are heavily subsidized by the rest of the countries already. What they also have is alot of people working abroad… so then they are allowed to surf with their cheap plans in not so cheap countries. I can also note that this law has resulted in alot more unlimited plans.…

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.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#267

Post by rhino369 »

zurn wrote: post #238
dx034 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size of the country will play a big role. Many European states are densely populated. Germany, for example, has more than 80mln inhabitants while it is smaller than the state of Montana. You won't have reception everywhere in Montana but just covering major highways and the interstate system in the US adds a lot of network costs. The barriers to enter are huge whereas you can easily provide coverage for a large p…

The most sparsely populated EU countries (Sweden & Finland) have good coverage and low prices. And mostly domestic (not foreign-owned) operaotrs.

You can't go by pure density. Imagine if you transported Mexico City into Antartica. It would be sparsely populated, but highly concentrated. Cellar coverage would be easy.

Are rural areas in Sweden dominated by small, fairly dense towns? In America, even small cities are sprawling because of cars. People will live 10 miles outside of a small town of 3000 people.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#268

Post by Sami_Lehtinen »

tdeck wrote: post #266
Shalle135 wrote: post #262

Moving more freely in EU why are people against that? Sure LT, LV, Poland, Romania etc probably got a slight raise. At the same time these countries are heavily subsidized by the rest of the countries already. What they also have is alot of people working abroad… so then they are allowed to surf with their cheap plans in not so cheap countries. I can also note that this law has resulted in alot more unlimited plans.…

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.

Unlimited 50 Mbit/s is 17,90€/mo and 100 Mbit/s is 24,90€/mo. Of course with unlimited full speed tethering. I found it utterly ridiculous that in US tethering is limited or there are transfer limits. Users easily use 30, 50 or 100 Gbytes / mo. Low limits make torrenting and snapschat, music streaming, Youtube and Snapshat really annoying to use. In Finland average users uses over 10 Gbytes/mo. You can guess what kind of amounts the top 20% transfers based on Pareto principle.

I usually recommend people to buy only one mobile Internet connection. It doesn't make any sense for "normal users" to buy anything else. 100 or 300 Mbit/s mobile, that's it. Yet 300 Mbit/s mobile is pretty expensive, 29,90€/mo (including tax and fees).

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#269

Post by Eridrus »

czr80 wrote: post #175
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 doesn't really make sense - what was stopping them from raising prices before, if people are really willing to pay 3-4 EUR more?

This is probably not true in this case, but in markets with lots of competition, raising the costs raises prices because companies are already providing services close to cost.

Even in less competitive markets, raising the cost of providing a service will shift the supply curve, which can result in increased prices.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#270

Post by nunobrito »

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.

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.
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