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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

#51

Post by JoeCamel »

ptaipale wrote: post #27
glebm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roaming costs are price gouging, the associated costs of providing roaming are nowhere near.

However, now EU regulates the price to consumers to be lower than the wholesale price of roaming charges between operators. That is a failure. They should regulate the wholesale price. In practice: I pay 20 € per month for unlimited mobile data. If I go to Italy and use my subscription there, I still pay 20 € per month for unlimited mobile data, but my operator has to pay 7 € per gigabyte to the Italian roaming partn…

You should check if your unlimited plan applies to roaming. I have a unlimited data plan in Croatia, but in roaming it's limited to 10 GB.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#52

Post by Kiro »

halloij wrote: post #4

So the cost incurred will be passed on to everyone in higher fees. eg people who never "roam" are going to be subsidising those people that do. A negative move spun as a positive... clever EU, clever.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is currently happening in my country. All operators are revamping their subscriptions.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#53

Post by panzer_wyrm »

_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)?

Cartels/vendor lock in

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#54

Post by rsynnott »

_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)?

Some telecoms actually did reduce roaming prices long ago, but consumers aren't particularly willing to move between networks (still more difficult than it should be in most cases, and the telecoms like it that way; that's why they resisted software SIMs so vigorously), and plans are often complex and difficult to understand.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#55

Post by matthewmacleod »

matteuan wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, there is still one important limitation: we will keep the fees for the traffic from our home countries.

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.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#56

Post by hav »

adders wrote: post #23
blibble wrote: post #8

I never saw why this interference in the free market was needed when it was making progress, and in some circumstances already provided solutions to the problem on Three I've had free roaming for years, at no additional cost, across the EU and a good chunk of the rest of the world http://www.three.co.uk/feel-at-home

The Three changes came in response to this change in regulations. As a relatively new operator they have always hated roaming, as it has made them less then the established operators.

I'd actually argue that Three has been in a good position to introduce free roaming as they are active in a few European markets. I'm not sure when they go from being new to established though, as I first recall seeing them sometime around 2000.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#57

Post by matteuan »

JoeCamel wrote: post #19
matteuan wrote: post #3

Unfortunately, there is still one important limitation: we will keep the fees for the traffic from our home countries.

No, calling foreign numbers costs the same in both your country and abroad. And it's usually more expensive on mobile networks, but that doesn't have anything to do with roaming.

I misunderstood, I read things again and you are right.

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#58

Post by JoeCamel »

halloij wrote: post #4

So the cost incurred will be passed on to everyone in higher fees. eg people who never "roam" are going to be subsidising those people that do. A negative move spun as a positive... clever EU, clever.

Didn't notice any price changes in Croatia. I pay ~15 EUR for unlimited calls, SMS, and mobile data (it's limited to 10 GB in roaming).

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#59

Post by gmac »

_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)?

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

Re: Europe mostly ends mobile roaming fees from today

#60

Post by mrweasel »

varjag wrote: post #41
mrweasel wrote: post #14

Yeah, the telcos have already found a way out. They simply remove EU roaming from their standard subscriptions and it now becomes an add-on. So if you want to use your phone in a different country during the holidays, you'll need an EU roaming subscription. The politicians once again failed to be sufficient precise in formulating a law that would produce the decided result. They should have added a clause that state…

Can you name one European operator that does that?

Telenor in Denmark, and its subsidiaries, are removing EU roaming for some contracts, or splitting them into EU and DK contracts.
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