But in those cases the sim is still tied to some provider who is managing the agreements for roaming.
I am actually hoping that this will pressure carriers into removing roaming costs. It is very odd that pay exorbitant costs to use my Dutch T-Mobile subscription in Germany (T-Mobile is a German company), rather than just using calling time of my subscription.
That said, roaming costs have dropped a lot, thanks to regulation of the market by the EU.
It is obviously slightly less practical than a single one, but it's better than switching SIMs and as a bonus you can have both numbers "always on".
Since I have a data subscription in both countries, I bought a cheap Huawei Android phone, installed Cyanogenmod and use that.
> Also, most interesting phone models do not have a dual-SIM option.
This is the strangest thing. In China, phones are overwhelmingly dual-SIM, and it's actually more difficult to find single-SIM phones (even clones of major-brand devices like iPhones will have dual-SIM); the production cost of adding a 2nd SIM socket is negligible.
My tactic when travelling has been to use a global roaming SIM during a long-haul trip (eg so I have some data during airport stopovers), then switch to a local prepaid SIM with a good data allowance once I reach my destination. (Congstar has worked well for me in Germany.)
http://www.gsmarena.com/roaming_charges_in_the_eu_could_be_g...
It may not happen this year but I reckon the days of roaming charges inter-EU are numbered. Numbered I tells ya! Can't come soon enough if you ask me.