Removing EU roaming charges is a big deal (2014)
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> unless it's backed up with a big financial stick
The costs are much lower than in geographically near but non-EU countries like Switzerland or Norway.
If it is true that the tariffs do not apply for you, then just write an email to your telecom regulator, for example Spain would be http://www.cnmc.es/
We pay for that through increased rates due to covering such a huge landmass, most of which is sparsely populated. Wyoming alone is larger than England and has only 600,000 people.
I wonder if this roaming agreement is being pushed back because of the massive costs it would incur. Your cheap Parisian data plan isn't going to cheap on a Greek island. Its foolish to expect to pay the same rate. I can't see this not raising rates.
Free roaming in Europe has many problems to face, but infrastructure isn't one of them.
That's an opinion not a fact. There are four major carriers and several MVNOs in the US. That's competitive with a lot of European markets, where its easier to break into considering the much smaller population/size. Heck, the entirety of Finland's population is about half the Chicagoland metro area.
>Free roaming in Europe has many problems to face, but infrastructure isn't one of them.
I don't see how someone with a budget plan in a highly dense country is going to be entitled to have the same economics roaming in countries with low desnity where the cost, per sq kilometer, for 3G/4G service is much, much higher.
A lot of the cost for US service is making sure people out in the boonies have service as well. That comes at a higher cost than some of the more ultra dense European markets. Its subsidised nation-wide, which makes sense, but if you have a cheap Finnish plan because your tiny country is easy to wire up, well, don't expect those rates in rural Bulgaria or on a Greek island.
Citation needed. A lot of the market entry barriers are political/regulatory. Also smaller populations make for smaller scales of economy. These together don't make it any easier to break into a smaller market. The total capital outlay may be smaller in a smaller market, but that does not mean it will be easier or more profitable.
The US market is not very competitive and the carriers do not compete as aggressively as European operators do. There are much more competitive European markets with three carriers that the US with four carriers.
> Heck, the entirety of Finland's population is about half the Chicagoland metro area.
And the point being? Finland is way larger than Chicagoland, has way lower popularion density and has far better and cheaper service.
> I don't see how someone with a budget plan in a highly dense country is going to be entitled to have the same economics roaming in countries with low desnity where the cost, per sq kilometer, for 3G/4G service is much, much higher.
You have gotten your assumptions completely wrong. Finland has the lowest popularion density inthe EU and the fifth largest land mass. Regardless of this Finland has the best and cheapest service in all of EU.
So, the question is more like this: Why shouldn't a user from a low density country be entitled to the same economics roaming in countries with high population density?
> A lot of the cost for US service is making sure people out in the boonies have service as well.
Citation needed.
> That comes at a higher cost than some of the more ultra dense European markets. Its subsidised nation-wide, which makes sense, but if you have a cheap Finnish plan because your tiny country is easy to wire up, well, don't expect those rates in rural Bulgaria or on a Greek island.
See above comment. Put up or shut up.
Do you just make up as you go along to support some pet theory? But it's far from clear what that might be.
Nearly the entire US population is now covered by AT&T and Verizon. Most major metros have four or five carriers to choose from.
Here, take a look at Sprint's coverage map:
T-Mobile has a 4G LTE network that covers ~80% of the US population and about 300 metro areas.
The fact is, most Americans have at least four major carriers to choose from, that offer competitive national plans.
The US wireless infrastructure has been far out in front of the European wireless infrastructure in terms of development.
We had 97% 4G LTE coverage across 320 million people before Europe got to even half coverage.
Further, the US system is accelerating in quality rather than slowing down, thanks to intense competition between AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. I don't see where the EU or Europe as a whole has anything like it.
If you have such a modern infrastructure combined with a healthy market competition like you say, it's incredibly confusing on why your contracts are so expensive then.
Or why do you need projects like Google Fi, which is twice as expensive as similar data plans from Europe.
"We had 97% 4G LTE coverage across 320 million people before Europe got to even half coverage."
That's because you only needed 2 companies to offer 4G and boom, 97% of the population suddenly have 4G. It's called a monopoly.
Europe on the other hand has many, many companies fighting over dozens of countries, buying the rights to be the first 4G network, legally stopping other competitors to join until later on.
I think it is impossible to calculate with publicly available data, but the interesting statistics would compare the networks directly in terms of infrastructure costs for new coverage (perhaps divided over the number of new customers in that coverage, but coverage has, uh, network effects) and infrastructure costs being spent on enhancing service levels in already covered areas.
More: Presumably, higher costs to add coverage to new people would indicate more complete coverage. The presumption being that a business is investing in the more profitable coverages first, so the later areas have a higher cost per customer accessed.
I've not quite figured out why more networks don't have deals like this in place, as a customer it can take like 1 holiday to wipe out price differences between network base prices.
[0] http://www.vodafone.hu/eng/phones-plans/pay-monthly-plans/re...
Is the data capped, or throttled? Is the coverage where the free roaming is included limited?
It is tempting as it does seem to include the 3 countries I split my year between (UK, Norway & Spain), but it is £2 to £4 more per month than my current Giffgaff sim.
Points of interest:
* Unlimited data in the UK translates to 25GB
* "Three reserves the right to suspend the international roaming when in a selected destination if the customer’s use exceeds any of the above limits for two (2) months within a twelve (12) month period. The service will be reinstated once the customer returns to the UK."
* "This offer is intended to be used by UK residents travelling abroad, and Three reserves the right to suspend the service in the event the UK allowance is used exclusively abroad for three (3) months within a twelve (12) month period."
It's not small print in as much as it's very clearly stated on their website.
I split my time between the UK and Italy, with some work in Hong Kong & the US - therefore it's perfect for me. I don't run over and pay approx £30 a month regardless of travel on a sim only, month by month plan. I do have one of their old sims though which has unlimited everything.
The only point of note I guess is that the internet is a little slow in Italy but then I'm also comparing that to my Italian 4G phone on Wind. Long story short, it's an excellent deal which has played a major part in keeping me retained as a customer.
Three Ireland currently don't do this for Three Ireland accounts, though tethering is prohibited on All You Can Eat by policy, not by network infra.
In the end I just got a local Three SIM, I think it was ~£6 for 700mb. Trying to find free wifi (without 30 minute access restrictions) in Hong Kong was impossible...
All I can say is that I've been to the UK and used my laptop with no issues and that I'll try in Spain in a couple of months.
Anyway, you are much more informed than me in this area, so I'll shut up now :)
On the other hand, Three usually allows tethering in the home country of the contract, and also offers contracts on mobile broadband devices.
Data is plentiful ( up to 25GB ) but subjectively I found it quite slow
No tethering from iPhones... a real shit and I don't know why they structured it this way
Phone calls are inclusive if you're calling UK phone numbers. Great if you're calling your wife or mates. Calls to local numbers in the country you are staying are not included.
All in all an excellent package. It covers a lot of very common use cases although not truly everything. Costs absolutely slashed.
Three UK have a complicated abuse checker implemented. For every calendar month, if you spend time roaming on a Feel At Home partner network you must also have your SIM register on the Three network in the UK at some point in that calendar month.
Failure to do that for 3 times in a rolling 12 months will automatically end your roaming privileges.
That implementation is designed to prevent someone buying a Three UK SIM and using it as a global traveling SIM. It's designed for people who instead travel between the UK and other destinations frequently. (i.e. their SIM will check in on the UK network at least once per calendar month)
In Italy (capped): Calls 18p/minute, data 19p/MB
In Japan (unregulated): Calls 149p/minute, data 800p/MB
Data is over 40x as expensive ! The pricing that telecoms companies charge when they can are obscene. (The capped 19p/MB is still vastly overpriced IMO as well...)
Pretty obvious I never used their data services abroad, but being offline when traveling is actually a big plus for me.
(just to explain, it's one of very few pay-as-you-go operators @ Suisse, for people like me who don't use their smartphones that much and have offline maps for navigation)
If you happen to be roaming abroad, they have data plans for 10 days / 100MB for 15 CHF, which is not great, but way cheaper than the example you gave above.
With the big carriers here you pay 0.05yen per packet, where a packet is 128 bytes. For example, looking at my bill from March, I used 6,971,294 packets (0.84GB) which would have cost me a grand total of 348,564yen (~$3000). I "only" paid 5200yen (~$50) for it because I'm signed up for a fixed data plan like everyone else. The exorbitant base prices are only there to make sure that everyone signs up for the expensive plans without too many complaints.
Oh, and did I say that all three big carriers have the exact same prices with more or less the exact same plans? :)
I bought a data-only SIM to use in Japan, there were a few to choose from, prices were around £25 for a gig of data. Oddly that's actually cheaper than your plan!
I was able to use Google Maps and didn't have that 'roaming' feeling associated with it. It was amazing!
And the limit is 35 days, not 7. I used this in Italy and it worked perfectly well.
Where do I need to sign the petition to push this through? (Or do I need to create one)
In many other European countries it is difficult (or impossible?) to find subscriptions with similar pricing. In quite many places there seems to be quite low (few gigs) transfer limits and for extra data you need to pay extra. Hard to see how the system could be setup so that the local operators could continue charging their high fees and yet I would be able to roam on their network without paying any extra.
The only way I can think of how we could complete get rid of roaming charges would be drastic consolidation on the operator market. When traveling abroad I wouldn't be roaming at all - I would be always on my home network.
Maybe the consolidation would be good on European level, but I'm a bit worried that at least for me this would mean much higher prices for mobile data. That's why my wish is that EU would just concentrate on lowering the roaming charges to more acceptable level instead of trying to get rid of them completely.
Seemingly a week after I top up my prepaid, I get a text (of course impossible to get service in English or any other language by the way) about having used up almost all of my lot. And I make sure not to use services that are video or picture heavy.
I have nothing but bad experiences with German telcos - my girlfriend had to fight customer service (hah!) for half a year before they finally let her end her contract and agreed she was right. Same for me when I last left Germany.
If I could, I would throw out my German phone company this instant.
All 4 major players offer 4G, just not in every corner of Germany.
In many other European countries it is difficult
(or impossible?) to find subscriptions with similar
pricing.
So what I'm saying is that already today, without roaming charges being abolished, using a foreign phone is generally cheaper than anything without a plan in Italy, and I know that Italy is one of the cheapest countries in Europe for non-monthly deals.
My understanding of the SMS thing is "nation of receiving phone operator" not "nation where the receiver is".
Italian SIM in Italy -> French SIM wherever = 30
Italian SIM in France -> any European SIM wherever = 7
Are you sure? How come your French phone is cheaper then?
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Italian phones were overpriced. A lot of things are there, IME.
Mobile pricing is mental - completely detached from technological restriction or infrastructure cost.
Also, some provider in EU ( as in France ) are making roaming free in most Europe already. However, unlike what the article suggested, you need to live in France to get them ( and remember the terrorists - you don't want to add yourself to some government shit-list just to save a few euro on holidays )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...
[1] The data isn't 4g, but for travel related items like TripAdvisor, maps, etc... it has always worked fine for me.
You know, Apple and Google both were prescient and at different times (late 90s for Apple early 2000s for Google) they both attempted to obtain licenses for unused spectrum from the FCC to create nation wide high speed wireless data networks... for free. IT was supposed to be like WIFI, unregulated and using spread spectrum, so there could be a free market in data for mobile devices. Both companies tried, both companies had different approaches, but both companies supported the other (well, apple supported google, not sure google was around when Apple tried). And both efforts totally failed.... because there is no money in giving away spectrum. For the "Common good" doesn't matter. The government makes billions from selling something it doesn't own and politicians themselves make billions more from not changing the situation once these large companies have bought their monopolies.
Taking just the consumer viewpoint "yay, free roaming!" is naive. As is just assuming that the reason for roaming charges in the first place is to cheat you.
Roaming charges are usually the consequence of higher costs for the network you're visiting.
In the early days of the market in the USA, they weren't charges-- eg additional fees-- so much as the fact that the "normal" price was a discount, because your plan had negotiated with the individual carriers in a variety of states to build up a network. (Remember the FCC's PCS auctions only allowed a maximum of three entities to have a license in a given city. Thus if metroPCS, swiftel and TexasComm got Austin licenses, then AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, in order to EVEN OFFER SERVICE in Austin Texas would have to do deals with those three companies. This greatly increased costs. Where they could play ball they built a network of fixed prices... and where they couldn't, the "roaming charges" were the additional fee that these people with their state granted tri-opoly would charge AT&T customers when they were visting Austin. In order to even have service.)
Thus these roaming charges are part of the governments exploitation of the common good for profit. (wireless spectrum with spread spectrum technology is nearly infinite. There could be a thousand carriers in Austin without interference. IT's not like the old days of Radio and TV where you needed exclusive "Channels." And spread spectrum technology was invented for WWII by the actress Hedy Lamar, so it's not like it wasn't in use in the 1990s. No, the government had a regulatory framework that was based on the pre-war era and gave it the ability to sell out the public to the tune of many billions of dollars. They also got to create major monopolies and have been reaping the benefits (in campaign contributions) ever since. While we've suffered from lack of competition.
Due to the monopolies the government has created there has been a great deal of consolidation in the industry, the TexasComms and Swiftels of the past have largely been bought by new entities like Verizon which were created-- at great cost and at great acquisition premiums-- to consolidate this already competition limited industry.
And because of the exclusive rights sold in those auctions new entrants cant come aboard.
Consequently when you have a network like this, and you ban roaming charges (Say they did the same here, I don't know what will happen in europe because I'm less familiar with their history) ... the result will be either that people's overall costs go up -- eg: The carrier just builds roaming charges into the standard rate and pockets the difference when you're not roaming... or they will start introducing technology "Differentiators" that are technically different but whose impact is negligible. EG: "3's new LTE3! Only available in the UK! sorry france, your towers haven't been upgraded."
This assumes there are higher costs for roaming in europe as there are in the USA.
To consider economic moves like this you have to consider the landscape and the consequences of making them. IT's not like there's free money.
It didn't have to be this way. The good guys-- Apple and Google both tried to fix it. Other efforts have come since then, more profit oriented, but still competition for the mobile data marketplace. They were also killed.
Mandating free roaming charges will only shift the costs... the root of the problem is this artificial monopoly and that it is essentially corruption designed to line politicians pockets.
There is a very simple point to this legislature: It says that every operator will have to sell it's network at a fixed wholesale rate to every other operator. So none of your objections apply. Roaming will be free, because it's the law.
Plus, prices won't rise, since wholesale rates are fixed, and there will be more competition. In other words, German Telekom will have to compete with Finland for price, and thus can't afford to raise it's prices for fear of losing customers to Finland.
> The good guys--Apple and Google
hardly.
Against what's actually proposed (a single EU market for telecoms, with single authorisation for providers, necessarily entailing a significant weakening of national spectrum monopolies - with the ban on roaming charges being a side effect at best, albeit the one that works best as a headline aimed at consumers) it appears to be an argument strongly in favour.
Might it be worth at least considering the possibility that the EC has actually thought about this for more than 30 seconds?
Draft legislation at http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/dae/docu... .