EU Telecoms deal: Mobile roaming charges ban in 2017
politico.eu
politico.eu
Roaming will be banned in 2017, and from April 30, 2016, surcharges for
roaming will be capped at a maximum of €0.05 per minute for calls, €0.02 for
SMSs and €0.05 per megabyte for data.Alas, you can't get a subscription as a foreigner (or at least, not easily). But you can get a relatively cheap, pre-paid SIM, which works just fine.
A lot of vendors at BKK (or any other airport) will be more than happy to sell them and configure your phone in the process.
They're also quite useful for reasonably priced phone calls home if you don't want to dicker with Skype and they can be topped up at just about every grocery store.
Anyway: Thank you for the tip. May it be useful to other travellers.
I normally only update apps over wifi.
Data charges without a data-plan are very expensive. Also it isn't still clear what will happen on prepaid card numbers, which many people choose as the only way to have a pay as you go service with reasonable charges.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5275_en.htm
Personally, I don't think this should exist. Imagine it saying in the US that the "fair use safeguard prevents people from using a cheaper cellphone service from another state".
That would be absurd right? I see it the same way in the EU. It's like they are trying to prevent competition within EU and maintain local monopolies. God forbid a carrier from one country could actually pose a threat to one in another country!
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around. They keep mentioning "Open Internet" as well, but there are a ton of exceptions in this new directive.
Günther Oettinger from the EU Commission has been the worst in this whole thing. He has been pushing for local ISP monopolies, extended customer lock-in and so on from the moment he became the Commissioner for Digital Economy. I think he's also supposed to be a free market, right-wing guy, but he's probably just corrupt.
https://gigaom.com/2014/11/07/let-isps-lock-their-customers-...
That's exactly the purpose of EU; regulate commerce by creating a system of quotas, preventing free competition but reducing the need for tariffs. Milk, cheese, produce, fishing, etc. This is perfectly in line with that idea.
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around.
Right-wing in a good part of Europe means they don't actively oppose regulated markets, not that they're free-market supporters. That's center-right, of course; actual right-wing usually means "fascist" (and opposes the EU itself).
Actual free-market supporters can't even get the required signatures to form a party in most European countries, let alone get elected.
That said, it still establishes some ground rules, which are good for the most part. I just wish there weren't so many exceptions to them, and I fear at least some of them will be abused. We'll have to see how it goes.
However, if Netflix, Spotify or Youtube manage to get that "specialized service" privilege, then we'll know the rules don't work and will have to be changed. Because right now that is NOT what the EU proposal is saying the new rules will allow to happen.
The clearly worst part from all of this seems to be the zero-rating, which I don't think should exist at all as it's too easy to abuse and too hard to contain with regulations if it exists at all. Plus, whatever regulations are put around it will probably help the big guys anyway.
This will probably lead to a TON of consolidation in the EU, and over the next 5 years you will end up with 4 to 5 big players.
The markets are mostly dominated by companies with coverage of most of the EU already, really. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telenor, Telefónica, Orange…
[1] http://www.three.co.uk/ http://www.three.ie/ [2] http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-only/
- 'All-you-can-eat' data (with limits enforced over 100GB [0])
- 300 minutes
- 3000 texts
It includes 4G where available in the UK.
In my experience the 'Feel at home' deal works great when roaming on a Three network abroad (i.e. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Hong Kong), but on their partner networks it is horribly slow (i.e. USA).
[0] - http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command...
The good news is that it can be even cheaper than what you mention, as it is available on pay-as-you-go tariffs as well.
The bad news is that there are some limitations on tethering abroad, and you do need to use your SIM in your home country at least once every 3 months. So it's not quite yet a situation where you can pick any cheap European provider and use them anywhere else in Europe without restrictions.
There is no mobile options in Ireland with decent caps. Living here and in a place that has ADSL1 and 4G available I tried finding a plan that would me actually consume media using 3/4G - there is no plan that doesnt throttle after at best 20Gb that I could find.
"Should your data usage exceed 15GB in a 30 day period and your usage affect other network users, we reserve the right to limit your Service."
O₂ would far rather 'lose' customers to Giffgaff than any other budget MVNO.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_Whampoa#History
I found the speeds were horrendous in NY also. But still better than roaming with my actual network provider.
I've never felt the need to go for a contract in the UK, as PAYG is so cheap on Three.
0: http://www.slideshare.net/Computaris/eu-roaming-regulations
The only reason customers would sign up to ARPs is to avoid expensive roaming charges. It's been apparent since before the ARP/LBO legislation came into effect that the EU was planning to eliminate roaming charges altogether within a few years. So, potential ARPs were faced with the prospect of operating for just a couple of years before their market effectively vanished.
It also didn't help that the mobile network operators dragged their heels on entering into agreements with the ARPs that did try to enter the market.
3LikeHome lets you roam in 18 different countries, the data used is taken from your allowance, and you can call home for normal price.
I am a dane living in London, and even though they say it isn't for longer stays abroad, I have been using my danish number in the UK for over a year without any issues.
I guess there is no reasons for alternative roaming provides when regular phone companies makes these changes themselves.
I'm emigrating in August, and my experience with Three.co.uk in London was terrible (congested network, impossible to load a map or email when I most needed it).
I had issues in Varde (close to Esbjerg) a few years ago, where the connection was bad, but that might have been fixed.
They have a map here: http://80.251.200.40/coverageportal_dk (sorry the shady link, that is what they provide)
Then the iPhone came out, and an “unlimited international data” plan was an additional $60/month, I believe. Basically doubling the monthly cost, and that didn’t have tethering.
THEN, they got rid of that altogether, and ever since it’s been a scramble in every country to buy a SIM card just to pay local rates and not get ripped off. It’s all the same internet… if you’re not at home and roaming agreements exist, the carriers should just be forced to pay each other fair rates.
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Am I missing something? What point are you making?
Rather unfair.
I am 99% sure that for most of the phone companies a call in a home country and outside of it costs the same. Especially, for companies with subsidiaries all over the world such as vodafone and tmobile
The problem with these sorts of legislature as I've experienced is that while the theory seems quite appealing it never really works as you would expect.
Canada did a similar thing a couple years ago. The CRTC imposed a law where an individual could only incur a maximum of $50 in data overage charges locally, and $100 when roaming. I was ecstatic when this was announced. And then one month I went over on data by $50. And then my data was cut off until I bought a "pack".
So yes, your phone bill will be unsurprising at the end of the month, but now your carrier will expect you to purchase a bucket of "roaming data" in the form of an add-on or package to your regular phone plan so that you can post your selfies with the Eiffel Tower in real time.
From what I've understood operators will reintroduce wholsesale roaming prices, which means that home operator will still pay for traffic while their clients are roaming.
This will bring us cheaper roaming but we will most likely have two separate packages - for domestic use and capped ones while roaming.
This is not net neutrality, this is a sham. It's full of deliberate vagaries and loopholes, and is specifically designed to kill the real net neutrality as it exists in my country, the Netherlands.
The new telecom law is specifically anti-Net Neutrality, designed to stop any more member states from adopting it, and overrule those that already have.
The Netherlands will vote against (government already announced that), but it won't matter. We'll be overruled. Once again we'll lose yet another bit of freedom to the corrupt EU.
To be honest i cant back this up with arguments and/or data. But this is what i heard from telecom specialists in the field.
Brussels makes rules, but doesnt understand the market and industry.
Most of the telecoms won't be paying at all, except as an independent exercise; they're nearly all owned by one of about five companies (or else are MVNOs who are already accustomed to paying for data etc for their customers).
Aren't those regulated by this as well? I remember the first EU data roaming regulations targeted only what the operators charged each other rather than what they charged the customers, so there's precedent at least.