Hacker News Reader

You are making a bad assumption: that the EU only regulates customer pricing. This is not the case. The roaming fees that operators can charge one another within the EU are also regulated.

I'm not sure about exact numbers, but at the moment I think they can charge eachother somewhere around 10 to 20 cents per minute at most (it differs for active/passive roaming). This limit would of course have to be lowered if roaming charges for customers were to be abolished.

The roaming fees that operators can charge one another within the EU are also regulated.

Exactly. The current law about customer level pricing also includes wholesale pricing regulation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...

You are right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...: "A wholesale price cap on Internet roaming was introduced on 1 July 2009".

Limits at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati... give EUR 0.10 per minute of across-operator roaming charges.

I fear that we will end up with a complex web of interdependent price regulations that is extremely difficult to keep up-to-date in the face of changing technologies.

I also wonder who will want to invest in next generation networks if the government regulates prices even in fiercely competitive markets.

Mobile in the USA is pretty much the definition of a not fiercely competitive market. Prices and features among carriers are pretty much identical and expensive. And if you think that was coincidental, I have some spectrum to sell you...

I'd argue the fact that the EU legislates for customer's rather than for business' benefit is part of the reason the mobile market there is in so much better shape than here.

Many EU countries have regulators that make sure there is a proper market. I think that kind of regulation has indeed helped a lot.

You need to consider where we come from. Back in the 80s most EU countries had exactly one telco, which was owned and operated by the government. I remember very well that prices back then were exorbitant compared to the US.

When they privatised the industry, they created regulators to make sure private competitors could even enter the markets that were still dominated by the formerly state run behemoths. So all of a sudden there were tons of telcos, they were very well regulated and tried to expand beyond their national borders creating even more competition in the process. That's what led to lower prices.

But the kind of regulation that creates functioning markets is very different from the kind of crude price regulation they are attempting to do now. What we're seeing now is the EU trying to be populist and shake their image as being remote and disconnected from people's needs.

The telecom sector has been consolidating for a while now and we don't have as many players in the market as before. That's what regulators should focus on, not prices of particular services.

Is it really that onerous (from a regulatory and compliance standpoint both) to say "You are not allowed to charge roaming fees?"

It's not as if they're regulating the price of minutes or packages or something, here. They're outlawing a very particular class of charges with a very particular meaning, with what appears to be a very good reason.

As I see it, they are weakening an important principle of competition law for no good reason at all. If they find that these prices are the result of insufficient competition they should act to change the structure of the market, not fix individual prices. That's just lazy populism.

>They'll sell their subsidiaries roaming at X and their competition roaming at X*1,000.

I doubt that would be legal. Anyone knows for sure?

If you're drafting legislation around roaming, why not write in reasonable competition provisioning while you're there? It won't be legal if we don't want it to be.

As far as I know the EU does cap roaming charges already, and they could continue to do so in the future. But as far as I know there is no rule which forces companies to charge equal prices for their competition and their subsidiaries across borders.

For one example, Vodafone UK for £3 will let you use your "UK minutes, texts, and data" in any european country. The reason they're able to offer that is because Vodafone runs networks in most european countries.

That is £3 they charge you to do something that costs them nothing - to relay your call from their network to... their network.

Maintaining infrastructure doesn't become more expensive just because the competition is using it when roaming. What they're doing is basically double dipping charging customers for service and competitors for roaming which the network are passing along to the customers.

However you look at it the customer is the one getting screwed here. They are only bitching because they're being forced to re think their business model and make it more fair.

When you think that Vodaphone is doing it even if you're still using their network just in another country it makes you think what's the difference between this and stealing? They're not competing with themselves so it's basically a scheme to make more money.

I'm not sure that's true. If Company A builds out a bunch of infrastructure but it's mostly used by Company B's customers, then Company A isn't getting the earnings it needs to pay back the infrastructure investment. Either Company B's customers need to send some revenue to Company A, or Company A is going to go out of business, possibly taking the infrastructure with it. Roaming fees, whether paid by the customers, the companies, or both, are necessary to support building and maintaining the infrastructure.

Now, when Company A and Company B are actually two divisions of the same parent company (which is apparently often the case for Vodaphone) then you're right; the roaming fees are double-dipping.

Company A is still able to adjust pricing on a global level (all customers) to compensate. If too many of Company B's customers go on Company A's network pricing will increase until they start choosing cheaper networks automatically balancing load and keeping prices at a similar point.

Plus we're talking about roaming here it's not like a lot of people decide to go on vacation at the same time and stay there for years until the company collapses.

But as far as I know there is no rule which forces companies to charge equal prices for their competition and their subsidiaries across borders.

Have a look at the "Wholesale caps (Operator to Operator)" table. That is regulated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...

Yes, but the regulation covers maximum prices - it doesn't prevent operators from giving their subsidiaries lower prices. Though they're shooting themselves in the foot if they do, I think, as the EU would likely point to that and make it clear that it's either anti-competitive or a clear sign that the caps can be lowered further.

Sure, but it stop the problem (as an ancestor post says) of charging a subsidator X and charging others X×1000. Since X×1000 is capped, it's less of a problem.

Sounds like that'd fall foul of standard anti-competitive laws.

I find it odd that BT is required by law to allow other companies to access their infrastructure for the sake of competition but the 2-3 mobile networks are not.

That's easily solved by making it illegal to require roaming charges from smaller operators.

>Just look at the US: Their networks are inter-state, and as a result of having to cover such a large landmass it is almost non competitive. You have three companies controlling the whole country. Prices are extremely high and services/choice is poor.

Where are you getting 3 from? Verizon, Sprint,(CDMA) AT&T, T-Mobile.(GSM) That's 4. There was a proposal for AT&T to buy T-Mobile but the Justice Department blocked that merger to preserve competition in the cellphone business.[1][2]

[1]http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/08/justice-depar...

[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T-Mobile_...

T-Mobile's coverage is poor in non-metro areas (I say this as a T-Mobile subscriber). The idea of a state-based phone operator that allows roaming from other states is an interesting one (though I'll admit I have no idea how it would play out)

You have no arguments from me about T-Mobile's coverage, as a former T-Mobile subscriber myself, but you can't say it doesn't exist.

AT&T paid T-Mobile billions of dollars as a result of the failed merger, so they were going to supposedly use that to improve their network. I didn't notice an improvement.

Well, T-Mobile has LTE now (I use it). So it seems they used the cash to upgrade their existing network rather than expand it.

Years ago (before smart phones and data plans) I had a friend who signed up with Sprint at address #1 with free roaming on his plan. He then went to school at address #2 and used his phone mostly at address #2 where he was roaming because Sprint didn't have coverage. Sprint didn't like this, because he was costing them more money to roam than to use their network, so Sprint dropped him as a customer for roaming too much.

With our currently mobile population, I'm not sure everyone would like that. I have a phone number from a place I haven't lived in the past 6 years. I'm never going to change my number, and I know I'm going to move to a new place sometime in my life, probably more than once.

If the latter situation ever occurred, I would hope someone like Elon Musk would startup a new open source network to challenge them.

Maybe someone should start an Elon Musk Hacker News drinking game. Every time he comes up in a topic you drink a shot, if the topic has nothing to do with him or is ventures you drink two shots.

As far as that "idea":

- An "open source network" makes no sense at all. Open source, what? Open source customer's billing information? The Linux OS that drives most networks already?

- Elon Musk could have already done so in the US or Canada given how horrible the networks are in either country. He hasn't.

- Elon Musk doesn't work in communications currently.

- Elon Musk isn't like the joker of the deck that you can just use to solve any issue or play any hand.

I propose something like an Uber for telecom networks.

Or even better, wait for it:

An Uber for Elon Musk.

Where do I collect my funding?