EU Announces Deal To End All Wireless Roaming Charges (venturebeat.com)

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EU Announces Deal To End All Wireless Roaming Charges (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on Wednesday February 1, 2017 @08:40AM from the major-win dept.

The European Union took a big step toward creating a Digital Single Market today with the announcement of a deal that would end roaming charges for mobile consumers across the continent. From a report on VentureBeat: The plan had originally been announced two years ago when the European Commission unveiled an ambitious plan to create a DSM that would unify the continent's fractured rules around digital content, ecommerce, and mobile communications. However, the plan to end roaming charges across boarders ran into stiff opposition from telecom carriers worried about profits and consumers who were concerned about limits it imposed on data usage. As a result, the proposal appeared dead at one point last year. But negotiators said today they had reached an agreement on technical issues like sharing carrier costs across networks and a gradual phase-out of caps on data usage.

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Just one more thing by andrewa · 2017-02-01 08:46 · Score: 4, Informative

that we Brits will miss out on...

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1. Re:Just one more thing by AmiMoJo · 2017-02-01 10:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Our negotiating position is extremely weak.
  We need the EU far more than they need us. 45% of our exports, 14% of theirs. We are in the position of having to do deals with people like Trump, and under a very tight timetable.
  But the biggest problem we have is that we want the EU to give us something. The EU just wants to discourage is from doing something that will hurt us both, but we actually want them to change their usual rules and give us access to the common market under preferential terms.
  
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It had to happen some day with more HTTPS use by SciFurz · 2017-02-01 08:49 · Score: 4, Informative

Since HTTPS can't be cached and more and more multimedia is being used on weebsites (not to mention the increased size of pictures on some sites), the amount of data usage is getting higher every year. The cost of that would be too much if limits are kept the same as they are now.

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1. Re:It had to happen some day with more HTTPS use by NotInHere · 2017-02-01 09:08 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  HTTPS can be cached. Usually CDNs do precisely this. For caching content on the local disk, its unchanged as well. And in corporate networks, its possible to have MITM'ing proxies, adding certificates to the trust store. Everything still possible.
This, A million times this is what the U.S. needs by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-01 08:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

Common Carrier all fiber, cable, cellular networks, everyone runs over the common carrier, no more fragmentation, no more limitations as all companies pay the same rate to run over the same equipment....
Of course this would end the gold-pressed-latinum mining that the Big 2 are doing right now.
That's incredible! by H3lldr0p · 2017-02-01 08:59 · Score: 2

Now I have to wonder when the Greatest Nation on Earth is going to do the same.
Oh. I forgot myself for a moment. It's profit over people. All the people, all the time.
1. Re:That's incredible! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-01 09:09 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Now I have to wonder when the Greatest Nation on Earth is going to do the same.
  Oh. I forgot myself for a moment. It's profit over people. All the people, all the time.
  in USA there are no roaming fees for moving across different states
2. Re:That's incredible! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-01 09:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  There was collusion in the market. The actors were given ample time to correct themselves. They didn't.
  Perhaps this is not the Invisible Hand Fixes All hill to die on.
3. Re:That's incredible! by quenda · 2017-02-01 11:07 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Now I have to wonder when the Greatest Nation on Earth is going to do the same.
  What you talkin' bout? We never had roaming charges anywhere within the continent. Though it does help that the whole continent is one country.
Roundabout way to achieve what's needed by Solandri · 2017-02-01 09:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

Roundabout, but effective. The problem is vertical integration. The carrier owns the towers, and sells the handsets. As a result, if you want a specific plan, you're stuck with the limited phones that carrier supports and the tower network that carrier uses. You want these things to be separate. Companies which own towers compete with each other. Companies which sell with service compete with each other. And companies which sell handsets compete with each other.

I'm usually critical of the EU's (over)regulation. But this is one thing they're doing right - maximizing competition so the free market can decide who is best and who deserves to go bankrupt.
1. Re:Roundabout way to achieve what's needed by Anne+Thwacks · 2017-02-01 09:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Actually, in the UK:
  Cell towers are mostly owned by independents, who provide a service to all carriers from the same tower
  You can buy handsets on Ebay or from Carphone whorehouse and use them on any network you like by changing the SIM card.
  The carriers are the same bunch of scum in all European countries anyway.
  The European regulator may be better than the UK one, but that is mostly because:
  1) The UK regulator is so useless, even a dead shrimp would be more effective.
  2) The fact that there even is a regulator is evidence that the legal system doesn't work.
  
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No Limits Roaming = Lowest Common Denominator by mutantSushi · 2017-02-01 09:44 · Score: 2, Interesting

Issue here is with no limits, there is no reason you ever need to have plan with your (actual, functional) local provider. If costs in Denmark are high, because workers operating infrastructure need higher salary to live on, or Danish government happens to tax wireless more, you can sign up for plan in Romania whose costs are based on Romanian labor costs and tax structure, yet continue to actually use Danish infrastructure all the same. If taken far enough, Romanian carriers will have to raise their prices to account for their share of Danish infrastructure costs, but that means all Romanians would then be paying those costs (while still on lower Romanian salaries) while Danish tax and government budget is being undermined.

Normal people don't need "unlimited free international roaming", and it's easy enough to just get a local SIM card if you are travelling alot or for extended time, so there just is no broad basis for instituting this change which has broader repurcussions. If there were mass popular demand for it, carriers would already offer at least limited versions of it (potentially most popular in small countries or regions where travel to nearby countries is routine). This just smells of ideological neoliberalism.
1. Re:No Limits Roaming = Lowest Common Denominator by Anonymous Coward · 2017-02-01 10:02 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Well...they do. Telia (and other operators using their network) offers what they call "Roam Like Home North" and "Roam Like Home Europe". Both services allow you to use your current subscription abroad, meaning if you have unlimited voice, you will have the same while roaming. The limitations are that data is capped to 10GB while roaming. "North" is limited to scandinavian and baltic countries, while "Europe" is limited to EU countries.
  They don't cost insane either. You can have free voice and messages, 8gb data and north roaming for about 22USD/month and the european one (data is also increased to 15gb) for about 29USD/month.
  Other networks are starting to offer similar services as well.
2. Re:No Limits Roaming = Lowest Common Denominator by thegarbz · 2017-02-01 10:41 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Normal people don't need "unlimited free international roaming", and it's easy enough to just get a local SIM card
  Allow me to explain Europe to you. Within 2 hours in the car I can travel to 4 different countries, going straight through one of them. Within 2 hours in a plane and for the cost of an averagely good meal (35eur) I can fly across half of the continent. On the way to work every day I see cars and trucks with a myriad of license plates from all over. Many people I know have relatives in other countries. Everyone I know country hops from holiday to holiday. I actually know a few people who commute between countries daily for work, and they get to work faster than I do.
  Just how many SIM cards do you expect us "normal" people to buy?
3. Re:No Limits Roaming = Lowest Common Denominator by AmiMoJo · 2017-02-01 11:27 · Score: 2
  
  The Romanian service provider would have to pay agreed fees to the network in Denmark. It wouldn't make sense for them to sell you a SIM at price that doesn't cover their costs, and the fees paid to the Danish network will more than cover their costs.
  It's a good thing for consumers. More choice, the ability to buy a foreign SIM (although you would get a Romanian phone number) if the deal is better, and everyone still makes money.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
4. Re:No Limits Roaming = Lowest Common Denominator by angel'o'sphere · 2017-02-01 11:55 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  A local SIM card is good enough for internet access, especially in a dual SIM phone.
  For the rest it is pointless, I want to be reachable on my ordinary phone number.
  Your idea about Romania etc. is bollocks. We are talking about ROAMING fees. Not about the local fees of the network. Obviously a minute in Denmark has a different price than in Romania.
  If there were mass popular demand for it, carriers would already offer at least limited versions of it (potentially most popular in small countries or regions where travel to nearby countries is routine).
  There is that demand. And that is exactly the reason why the carriers don't have such offers, so they can rip of their "customers".
  This just smells of ideological neoliberalism.
  And you smell like an idiot. You have ever been in Europe? Depending where I am, I can visit in 3 hours 5 or even 6 countries by just traveling in a straight line. Do you have any idea how absurd high roaming fees actually are? Do you even know that you pay the fee when you make a call and also when you receive a call? When I'm not in germany, every single call I receive costs me minimum one Euro, regardless of duration (plus minute based fees). Receiving 10 calls a day on a one month trip and telling everyone: "Sorry, please call my new local phone number, which is ....." is $300 or more bill!!!
  
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Meanwhile back in the US... by OneHundredAndTen · 2017-02-01 10:05 · Score: 2

... The mobile phone industry remains anchored in the 90s.
When was the party? by Roger+W+Moore · 2017-02-01 11:38 · Score: 2

We in the US have Trump (nee: Drumpf) to deal with, you guys have Brexit. Welcome to the global hangover!
If it's a global hangover then when did we have the preceding party? It clearly must have been a really good one because I don't remember it happening at all.