Slashdot Mirror
EC Calls For End To Mobile Roaming Charges
An anonymous reader writes "European travellers who use their mobile phones abroad could soon see a dramatic reduction in their bills, after the European Commission announced plans to eradicate roaming charges by 2015. In a consultation paper launched yesterday, the EC invited consumers, businesses, telecom operators and public authorities to evaluate the EU's existing roaming rules, and to share their ideas on the best ways to boost competition in roaming services. 'Huge differences between domestic and roaming charges have no place in a true EU Single Market,' said vice-president of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes. 'We need to address the source of current problems, namely a lack of competition, and to find a durable solution. But we are keeping an open mind on exactly what solution would work.'"
This is one of the places where I, for one, would welcome more regulation. The roaming charges are often completely absurd, and I don't see the free market taking care of it anytime soon. Now, if they could fix the roaming charges for data connections outside of the EU too... (over 10€/MB? Seriously?)
European travelers who use their mobile phones abroad could soon see a dramatic reduction in their bills...
I thought the idea behind the creation of the EU was to eliminate the notion of "abroad"?
Portugal and Spain are already in talks to end roaming charges between the two countries: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/technology/08roam.html
Bet one eurocrat got angry about the roaming charges because he used his private phone in Brussels.
I'm guessing their next thing is to put out a hit on the commission members.
Bad idea. Her position as an unelected official notwithstanding, Neelie Kroes is one of the good ones. Under her leadership as Commissioner for Competition, the EU already imposed actually meaningful penalties on Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour. I don't suppose the telecoms companies are going to scare her, particularly given that they are so obviously ripping everyone off and the telecoms industry is so obviously not functioning effectively as a free market with open competition in this respect.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
If the costs could've collapsed by nature, it probably would've happened to at least a miniscule degree in the last decade of widespread mobile phone use. The fact is that it's at a deadlock. Each carrier charges every other carrier obscene termination fees for roaming. It's that fee that then sets the roaming rate in the market. A network could choose to eat the huge fees the other networks charge when its own customers roam, but that'd probably drive it out of business. Or it could choose to drop its termination fees for non-customers roaming onto its network, but that doesn't benefit them in the slightest, it helps everyone else instead. They're stuck in a local minimum that free market actions can't hop them out of. They need a perturbation. If/when roaming fees are forced to drop, they should stay low without any further action.
(FWIW, your common or garden Symbian phone's had SIP integrated for a while, and it's hardly affected mobile VOIP adoption.)
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The paper includes questions about that last frontier of all rip-offs: data traffic.
The prices you pay for phone call roaming have indeed been affected by EU rules, but you now get ripped off over data - the cheapest resource to provide as the whole infrastructure has already moved to IP (that was one of the reasons 2.5G to 3G took so much time - the underlying security model had to be changed). This is partially visible in the VoIP and WiFi comments, so they're not ignorant of the issue - maybe I'm just too picky :-).
I cannot see the paper make a clear distinction between voice and data, but on the other hand, it's not that clear on packing the two together either so if you answer, make the distinction and address both separately.
Insert
You're probably American, and as such it's normal that you travel less outside your own country. Europeans in general travel more frequently to other European countries.
As a European I would never dream of purchasing "international service", not that it exists as a product here, I should not have to. The basic service is not a problem, your phone will work automatically.
When I travel abroad [at least in Europe] I expect to continue using my phone without any interruptions or changes. It works that way too, as every network has some local partner in the foreign country in question. The only issue is with the roaming charges, they can be exorbitant, but at least the EU is looking out for us.
The point is that within the European Union marketplace there is no room [by law] for abusive pricing that treats consumers differently depending on their nationality. The EU's goal is to create one, free market.
Roaming charges are so high because there is no competition in that field. None. You're dependent on your operator - you have no choice. They compete with each other on the local market, not on roaming charges, because - let's be real - some 90% of the telephone users doesn't even use roaming, save for maybe those two weeks vacation a year and then they'd just switch off the phone.
People that have most roaming charges are those that travel for business, and they often don't have to pay their own bills (so they don't care). And companies don't care enough because it's too important to have the phone work in the first place.
I think it would be fair if, say, you're on a Spanish SIM and traveling in the UK, you pay the same rates as a holder of a UK phone would pay.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
When I moved here from the USA, I had to wait a month before I could manage to jailbreak and unlock my AT&T iPhone. During that month, I used up 300 minutes and 200 text messages, with many of the minutes coming from random "blocked" calls I received on my phone that only lasted one minute, and many texts from text spam advertisers. The result? A 600 dollar phone bill.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
In 2003 I took my UK GSM phone on a family trip to the Florida Keys. Before I left I asked about roaming data use abroad and Vodafone told me no problem, just use it like you would at home, no APN reconfiguration necessary and no extra charges. They were completely true to their word and although I ssh'd back to the UK quite frequently I never saw anything on my phone bill.
Of course this was probably before telco woke up to the money that could be made.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
I have been on GSM in Europe since the very beginning, a professional traveller.
I perfectly remember roaming rates were widely variable according to the carrier you chose abroad, and soon there were ordered lists that you would enter in your phone to indicate careful preference for carrier X vs Y then Z, for each country. It was somehow painful to enter in the phone, but once only and cool after that.
Then, I *even more perfectly* remember, one day the news unanimously announced, in order to simplify customer experience, all european carriers had agreed onto a clearer and common rate.
Absolutely no one reacted. The rate of course was among the highest (at least, five or ten time higher than the lowest before).
No newspaper claimed this was an illegal arrangement, and neither did the Ms Kroes of the time.
Saying we discover it today is just a shame.
When it was done, it was fully in the open, and no one reacted.
Herve S.
Who gets only 2 weeks of vacation? We usually have 8 weeks. The workaholics only take 6 though.
If the costs could've collapsed by nature, it probably would've happened to at least a miniscule degree in the last decade of widespread mobile phone use. The fact is that it's at a deadlock. Each carrier charges every other carrier obscene termination fees for roaming. It's that fee that then sets the roaming rate in the market.
In theory, you are right. However, de facto there are only some mobile phone operators which are active in (nearly) all European countries. If Orange UK charges an Orange France user huge roaming costs, this is just for screwing the customer. And, to make it worse, the SIM card of the Orange France user has the preinstalled "preference" to use the Orange UK network. The same goes for t-mobile and Vodafone users - and probably most the other mobile carriers.
While the EU regulation already put a cap on the roaming costs for phone calls; the costs for data roaming is still obscene and completely nontransparent (I have really no clue how much the provider in another EU country charges me, if I do not do a check first - btw: how do you do this check without paying roaming costs? - everytime I turn on my mobile when arriving at the airport).
Looking at the big operators in the UK -
Telefonica also has networks in Ireland, Isle of Man, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy and Spain
Everything Everywhere (Orange / T-Mobile) also has networks in Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Armenia, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Moldova, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Switzerland)
Vodafone also has networks in Albania, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Nothern Cyprus, Portugal, Romania, Spain, France, Poland and Slovenia
Three also has networks in Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland and Italy.
In each case, they charge their sister companies more for roaming fees than they charge their own customers for using the network.