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Comment by r3m6 | Hacker News Reader

>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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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