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Comment by vultour | Hacker News Reader

Wow the prices people pay in here are exorbitant. I have a UK no contract SIM and pay 25 pounds a month, this includes uncapped internet and quite a number of texts + minutes. I pretty much only use it for the internet as it's such good value.

The best thing about it is that the uncapped internet works in pretty much any EU country I've been to. This is really surprising from UK as most of the stuff in there is usually more expensive than in the rest of the EU, however I don't think I've ever seen a plan with uncapped internet and free roaming in any other country.

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I pay $14/mo for unlimited 100Mbit/s home internet + 120 channel home TV + 12G mobile data/mo + 1000 min and 500 SMS local cell (stock offer from ISP). This is compensated by the fact that I live in Russia though.

> uncapped internet works in pretty much any EU country I've been to

This is merely providers trying to be competitive and gain market share before EU abolishes roaming fees on 15th June [0].

A lot of providers I've seen have in the small print a limit for the time you can spend outside the home country (e.g. Three with their 'Feel At Home' limit you to two months a year abroad), so it'll be interesting to see what they come up once this comes into effect.

I'd be very surprised if my €5/month 'unlimited' (fair usage) 4G will really be unlimited throughout the EU.

[0] http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/telecoms-inte...

Last year, I had a 3 UK data sim (30pounds, 12 gig, 1 yr) that travelled with me, and it was good. Ireland was fine, France was fine.

This year, I got a new one, and once I cross into Ireland it's throttled pretty badly. Which is better than my Irish one that goes on roaming at .25/meg once I cross the border, but it's still not as good as it was.

Yes, but feel at home has predated this for years and also works outside the EU (US/AU/NZ). I don't think it's just that. Though Vodafone's new EU roaming offer is definitely just that.

Italy has a formally uncapped mobile Internet, but past a quota it should slow down to a crawl. I really don't know if it does or what the usual prices are because my data needs are very modest. I'm on a cheap offer from many years ago and I pay 6 Euro per month for 2 GB + some text and voice. I use between 300 to 400 MB of data per month, everything else is on WiFi (some GB) because basically there is WiFi everywhere I go unless I'm outside. Add some 50 Euro at home for fiber, but I need that to work (I just did some docker push/pull) so I'm not sure it compares with your 25 pounds for mobile (do you have fixed Internet?). Furthermore it's a 50% operating cost for my business, but same for the phone.

In the Netherlands you can buy "Unlimited Everything" plans for €35 a month. This means unlimited Calls, texts, data in the entire EU. I think the EU part is capped to 10gb a month after the first 2 months you spend outside NL.

In NL, it will stay unlimited the entire year. The prices some people posting here are paying are ridiculous.

And FYI: the EU mandates that you can use calls/texts/data from your own, local plan in the entire EU for up to 60 days every year. Without any additional costs. (finally)

> Prices were collected from the operator with the largest marketshare in the country, using the least expensive plan with a (minimum) data allowance of 500 MB over (a minimum of) 30 days.

The prices are definitely skewed higher because of these constraints. As other have pointed out more expensive plans often have a better currency/MB value than the cheapest plans.

T-Mobile in the US has a set of plans that offer unlimited international data roaming in more than 140 countries [1]. The catch? The bandwidth is capped to 128kbps.

[1] https://www.t-mobile.com/optional-services/roaming.html

Same in France with Free Mobile. Free voice and text roadming, data roaming is limited to 3Go though. Cost 20 euros/month.

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