5 ms·

One nice and welcome example of consumer-friendly legislation, btw: The EU prohibited mobile operators from charging voice and data roaming fees within the EU.

by FabHK 5y ago

One nice and welcome example of consumer-friendly legislation, btw: The EU prohibited mobile operators from charging voice and data roaming fees within the EU. So, now on holiday in Spain, say, you can just keep using your mobile contract including free minutes and data. (A typical deal is <10$ a month for unlimited calls, unlimited SMS, and, say, 3 GB data; or 15$ for >10 GB data.) When traveling outside the EU, it's still best to buy a local SIM to avoid the ludicrous roaming charges, but there's no need to do that within the EU anymore.

Freak_NL 5y ago
Very interesting (or disturbing) in this regard is the UK after Brexit, where one by one the mobile operators are all reintroducing roaming charges now that the relevant EU law no longer applies.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  Elections have consequences.
- throwaway473825 5y ago
  Another consumer-friendly regulation that Brexit has destroyed is the cap on interchange fees (0.2% for consumer debit cards and 0.3% for consumer credit cards).[1] [1] https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-hikes-uk-eu-online-interchange-fees-faces-us-investigation-into-debit-card-practices https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-hikes-uk-eu-...
beezischillin 5y ago
That's strange because I have separate roaming data in my contract and it's way less than my local one.
- chefkoch 5y ago
  Then you have either a very old contract or one of the special no roaming ones.
  - beezischillin 5y ago
    I renewed five contracts this year, neither of them had the same amount of data for roaming as they did for local. Calls and SMS, they did (unlimited, basically). This seems to be the norm for Orange here. I would assume the same goes for Vodafone since they generally seemed to always offer less for more. That being said, it's absolutely lovely to be able to travel for business or holiday and to be able to find your way around, purchase things and get access to public transportation information abroad. Roaming costs before that always tended to be so eye-watering that I never really knew anyone who thought they were worth putting up with. I really dislike going outside of the European Union because of them, myself, too.
    - piaste 5y ago
      If memory serves, the amount of roaming data you get is computed on the basis of 'what would you get if you paid roughly the same amount of money to a typical provider in the country where I am travelling', with some caps in both directions. I live in Italy which has low prices, so I get 50 GB/mo for 8€ (and 200 GB/mo during the summer). Last summer I travelled to Austria and Czechia, I had 4GB available in both countries, and indeed checking their biggest ISPs' landing pages it looks like 8€ wouldn't have bought me even a gig! So 4GB is probably a mandatory minimum.
      - beezischillin 5y ago
        That's interesting, thanks you for the explanation, makes sense to me!
- alwayseasy 5y ago
  You have less data because the law is for roaming not for people who want a Polish data plan they can use all year in Italy.
- nemetroid 5y ago
  There are some provisions about ”normal usage”, and operators are allowed to charge extra in certain cases. But not more than 3€/GB. As a comparison, my operator charges roughly ten times that for roaming in the US (and in 250 MB blocks, expiring in 24 hours).
behnamoh 5y ago
I find it interesting that our main hope for forcing the big tech to follow ethical/environment_friendly/user_friendly procedures is not the US, but the EU. I'm not European, but can anyone tell me how does the political system in the EU let (or even motivate) law-makers and governments to support such mandates and laws that are in favor of consumers?
- DangerousPie 5y ago
  I'm not an expert by any means, but my impression is that, while they certainly still have some influence, lobbyists and big companies hold a lot less sway in European politics than in the US. Part of that may be tighter rules around campaign finance, part of it may be cultural.
  - berikv 5y ago
    Also, the EU government is not hugely popular in the public opinion. Years ago the EU government was popularly known for creating nonsensical rules (and there are indeed examples of nonsensical rules). To claim their future existence, the EU government really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens.
    - LeonidasXIV 5y ago
      > To claim their future existence, the EU government really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens. A lot of it has to do with the EU government being the punching bag of local politics. Like the German conservatives would throw up their hands "we can't do anything against this nonsensical EU legislation", completely omitting that they are represented in the EU parliament and could've done something against it there. And the population buys it because the in general the EU population knows less about EU governance than US governance. A shame.
  - OneTimePetes 5y ago
    Lots of right wing parties in the EU advocate for a "countryname-exit" and thus lobbyism in the EU has to fight the fear of no-existing very soon. Thus, the government has to fight for the approval of the people every day at gunpoint and thus, good legislation may appear for fear of loosing ones power, job and by that even the lobbyism bribery income.
spoonjim 5y ago
Legislating pricing is something governments can do well. Legislating physical interconnect is an area where they are much more likely to be ignorant of the relevant requirements. I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C despite the interoperability; I hope that if the EU goes down this road that Apple makes a Lightning phone for the rest of us.
- foogazi 5y ago
  > I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C despite the interoperability; Why do you prefer Lightning over USB-C ?
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    MUCH easier to connect in the dark, which I do a lot of. My broader point is that government regulators are not product managers / user researchers and shouldn’t get in the business of regulating specific features.
WinstonSmith84 5y ago
Only partially true, let's not be misleading. It works for short vacations, that's about it. The EU has a so called "fair use policy", that basically give mobile operators the possibility to charge you more when you're more than xx days out of the country of registration (it's more complicated than this, but it's the idea anyway). In my case, traveling often abroad, means I'm constantly hitting this limit which force me to buy local sim card from time to time. It's nowhere near like in the US if some were thinking at this for comparison.
- jarcane 5y ago
  Yup. And there's exceptions galore too. You can just claim that free roaming will cause "financial hardship" and still get away with charging roaming fees anyway. Nearly every provider in Finland immediately applied the exemption and kept charging roaming fees anyway. Goddamn 2021 and we're still pretending electrons cost more based on distance.
EduardoBautista 5y ago
Thankfully, if you have an eSIM compatible phone, you can use a service like https://www.airalo.com/ https://www.airalo.com/ to quickly get a local data plan. Let's see if this forces carriers to reduce their roaming fees.

by FabHK 5y ago

Freak_NL 5y ago

Very interesting (or disturbing) in this regard is the UK after Brexit, where one by one the mobile operators are all reintroducing roaming charges now that the relevant EU law no longer applies.

mikepurvis 5y ago
Elections have consequences.
throwaway473825 5y ago
Another consumer-friendly regulation that Brexit has destroyed is the cap on interchange fees (0.2% for consumer debit cards and 0.3% for consumer credit cards).[1] [1] https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-hikes-uk-eu-online-interchange-fees-faces-us-investigation-into-debit-card-practices https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/37706/visa-hikes-uk-eu-...

beezischillin 5y ago

That's strange because I have separate roaming data in my contract and it's way less than my local one.

chefkoch 5y ago
Then you have either a very old contract or one of the special no roaming ones.
- beezischillin 5y ago
  I renewed five contracts this year, neither of them had the same amount of data for roaming as they did for local. Calls and SMS, they did (unlimited, basically). This seems to be the norm for Orange here. I would assume the same goes for Vodafone since they generally seemed to always offer less for more. That being said, it's absolutely lovely to be able to travel for business or holiday and to be able to find your way around, purchase things and get access to public transportation information abroad. Roaming costs before that always tended to be so eye-watering that I never really knew anyone who thought they were worth putting up with. I really dislike going outside of the European Union because of them, myself, too.
  - piaste 5y ago
    If memory serves, the amount of roaming data you get is computed on the basis of 'what would you get if you paid roughly the same amount of money to a typical provider in the country where I am travelling', with some caps in both directions. I live in Italy which has low prices, so I get 50 GB/mo for 8€ (and 200 GB/mo during the summer). Last summer I travelled to Austria and Czechia, I had 4GB available in both countries, and indeed checking their biggest ISPs' landing pages it looks like 8€ wouldn't have bought me even a gig! So 4GB is probably a mandatory minimum.
    - beezischillin 5y ago
      That's interesting, thanks you for the explanation, makes sense to me!
alwayseasy 5y ago
You have less data because the law is for roaming not for people who want a Polish data plan they can use all year in Italy.
nemetroid 5y ago
There are some provisions about ”normal usage”, and operators are allowed to charge extra in certain cases. But not more than 3€/GB. As a comparison, my operator charges roughly ten times that for roaming in the US (and in 250 MB blocks, expiring in 24 hours).

behnamoh 5y ago

I find it interesting that our main hope for forcing the big tech to follow ethical/environment_friendly/user_friendly procedures is not the US, but the EU. I'm not European, but can anyone tell me how does the political system in the EU let (or even motivate) law-makers and governments to support such mandates and laws that are in favor of consumers?

DangerousPie 5y ago
I'm not an expert by any means, but my impression is that, while they certainly still have some influence, lobbyists and big companies hold a lot less sway in European politics than in the US. Part of that may be tighter rules around campaign finance, part of it may be cultural.
- berikv 5y ago
  Also, the EU government is not hugely popular in the public opinion. Years ago the EU government was popularly known for creating nonsensical rules (and there are indeed examples of nonsensical rules). To claim their future existence, the EU government really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens.
  - LeonidasXIV 5y ago
    > To claim their future existence, the EU government really has to prove their usefulness for the EU citizens. A lot of it has to do with the EU government being the punching bag of local politics. Like the German conservatives would throw up their hands "we can't do anything against this nonsensical EU legislation", completely omitting that they are represented in the EU parliament and could've done something against it there. And the population buys it because the in general the EU population knows less about EU governance than US governance. A shame.
- OneTimePetes 5y ago
  Lots of right wing parties in the EU advocate for a "countryname-exit" and thus lobbyism in the EU has to fight the fear of no-existing very soon. Thus, the government has to fight for the approval of the people every day at gunpoint and thus, good legislation may appear for fear of loosing ones power, job and by that even the lobbyism bribery income.

spoonjim 5y ago

Legislating pricing is something governments can do well. Legislating physical interconnect is an area where they are much more likely to be ignorant of the relevant requirements. I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C despite the interoperability; I hope that if the EU goes down this road that Apple makes a Lightning phone for the rest of us.

foogazi 5y ago
> I, for one, vastly prefer Lightning to USB-C despite the interoperability; Why do you prefer Lightning over USB-C ?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  MUCH easier to connect in the dark, which I do a lot of. My broader point is that government regulators are not product managers / user researchers and shouldn’t get in the business of regulating specific features.

WinstonSmith84 5y ago

Only partially true, let's not be misleading. It works for short vacations, that's about it. The EU has a so called "fair use policy", that basically give mobile operators the possibility to charge you more when you're more than xx days out of the country of registration (it's more complicated than this, but it's the idea anyway). In my case, traveling often abroad, means I'm constantly hitting this limit which force me to buy local sim card from time to time. It's nowhere near like in the US if some were thinking at this for comparison.

jarcane 5y ago
Yup. And there's exceptions galore too. You can just claim that free roaming will cause "financial hardship" and still get away with charging roaming fees anyway. Nearly every provider in Finland immediately applied the exemption and kept charging roaming fees anyway. Goddamn 2021 and we're still pretending electrons cost more based on distance.

EduardoBautista 5y ago

Thankfully, if you have an eSIM compatible phone, you can use a service like https://www.airalo.com/ https://www.airalo.com/ to quickly get a local data plan. Let's see if this forces carriers to reduce their roaming fees.