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Comment by jcrei | Hacker News Reader

This could have the potential to become quite disruptive. If there are no roaming charges, I will be free to select any operator from any EU country and am not stuck with the ones where I reside. This will increase competition, and lower prices (or service levels will increase).

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Not really - no roaming charges doesn't mean it's not more expensive to call people from other countries.

So if you have a number in France, but you call mostly UK people, it will still cost you more than if you had a UK number - it just won't cost you more if you're calling them from France than if you're calling them from the UK.

Other option: if you have friends or relatives in the other country, just bring your SIM card with you when you leave. Frankly it's so tiring to live on the border and pay for the roaming just because cell phone decided to be in roaming.

I don't know about the situation in most of Europe, but I think at least some countries could be severely disrupted by French operators, which seen some very low cost alternatives emerge since the irruption of a 4th operator in early 2012.

2h + SMS only costs 2€/mo, where it used to be 16-25€ only two years ago ; and the full package (unlimited everything, with data bandwith capped after 3GB) 20€

Now if there's a country with even cheaper mobile plans... I'd like to see that

Latvia - Tele2, 9eur for unlinited domestic calls/sms+2GB of full speed, after that capped to 64kbps but still unlimited.

Austria...

Others make the point about calling costs, but if you want data only (say for a tablet/laptop/mifi) an any-network roaming SIM would be very attractive. For example my current network is great in London, but has no signal at all in my hometown. It would also be handy for use on the train, where coverage on all networks is patchy.

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