4 ms·

There is no free market. There can be only so many telcos in one country anyway, so instead of a race to the bottom, telcos of each country form cartels. In Gr

There is no free market. There can be only so many telcos in one country anyway, so instead of a race to the bottom, telcos of each country form cartels. In Greece for example, we have 3 mobile operators and they announce exactly the same changes to their plans within a couple weeks difference. Things like “we increase our basic plan by 5 euros” or “you have to top up your prepaid phone at least once every 3 months instead of 12”. This way, there is no point at switching. Especially roaming was a golden goose until few years ago, because each telco charged termination fees for roaming subscribers. So your telco was like “I can't do much, I have to pay the foreign telco”. What happened in EU, is that by law these termination fees started getting smaller until today where they become zero.

mamon 9y ago
In Poland it actually is a race to the bottom: there are 4 different mobile operators and every time one of them announce a new offer it usually is cheaper than anything already on the market. And within few weeks other 3 usually follow with similar price cuts. EU's roaming regulation is the latest example: 3 operators announced tariffs that pretended to make roaming free, but have multiple strings attached. But the fourth one, Orange, announced offer without any fine print, just equating roaming prices with domestic ones, thus forcing other three to do the same. If I recall correctly there wasn't a single price raise in Poland in the last 15 years.
- andmarios 9y ago
  You guys are lucky. I wish it was the same with the greek market. Though the cynic in me whispers that wait a few years and you'll experience the same behavior once the market is settled.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    I don't know man, I have the Cosmote 65 and was paying 12 euros a month until recently (now I pay 20) for 1500 mins/SMS and 3 GB/mo. If you tell them you're switching away every time your contract lapses, they give you huge discounts.
literallycancer 9y ago
There can be any number of telcos, the telephony regulator just needs to force them to share the infrastructure.

mamon 9y ago

In Poland it actually is a race to the bottom: there are 4 different mobile operators and every time one of them announce a new offer it usually is cheaper than anything already on the market. And within few weeks other 3 usually follow with similar price cuts. EU's roaming regulation is the latest example: 3 operators announced tariffs that pretended to make roaming free, but have multiple strings attached. But the fourth one, Orange, announced offer without any fine print, just equating roaming prices with domestic ones, thus forcing other three to do the same. If I recall correctly there wasn't a single price raise in Poland in the last 15 years.

andmarios 9y ago
You guys are lucky. I wish it was the same with the greek market. Though the cynic in me whispers that wait a few years and you'll experience the same behavior once the market is settled.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  I don't know man, I have the Cosmote 65 and was paying 12 euros a month until recently (now I pay 20) for 1500 mins/SMS and 3 GB/mo. If you tell them you're switching away every time your contract lapses, they give you huge discounts.

literallycancer 9y ago

There can be any number of telcos, the telephony regulator just needs to force them to share the infrastructure.