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Yes the EU does do that sometimes, but roaming charges aren't exactly a great example. What happened there is that relatively wealthy people who travel a lot go

Yes the EU does do that sometimes, but roaming charges aren't exactly a great example. What happened there is that relatively wealthy people who travel a lot got themselves a rebate that average earners are now having to pay for through their phone bills. If roaming charges were high because there wasn't enough competition in the market then that's what the EU should have tackled. Otherwise high prices will just move on to other items on our phone bills and the whole thing becomes a game of whack-a-mole that the best connected special interest groups will always win. Governments should regulate to make sure that markets actually work and that everybody has basic rights such as getting access to their own data after proving who they are.

brnt 4y ago
_Every_ European travels internationally. Have you seen our borders? If we drive 500km in any direction we probably crossed at least 3 borders. Really, the people that don't are rare.
- fauigerzigerk 4y ago
  Some people travel _far_ more than others and you can be pretty sure that the distribution mirrors the wealth distribution. I have seen our borders. I am European myself, with roots in more than one country.
  - shaky-carrousel 4y ago
    Ah, no, not really. My family is not exactly wealthy, and they traveled frequently to France by car. And with Ryanair is incredibly cheap to travel nowadays.
    - hk__2 4y ago
      Yep. I’m always amazed when I hear Italian students with no money saying they went to Paris or London for less than €10 with Ryanair. For those who don’t like planes, there are low-cost bus companies over the whole continent. Trains are more expensive, but a Paris-Milan is still only €40 if you book in advance. The Instagram/TikTok feeds of 20-25 y/o are full of these lists of European cities you can visit in a weekend with a low budget. See also: Erasmus.
      - kergonath 4y ago
        Which is great. We need everyone to experience other countries’ cultures. This is the best way to keep the continent politically stable in the future. Well, as stable as it can be anyway. Avoiding another major war would be nice.
  - kergonath 4y ago
    For the people who do it that often, roaming charges are not a problem. Even before they disappeared, they were not that expensive. The people who benefit most are those who cross a border to go to work, those with family in a different country, and normal people taking advantage of the unsustainably low prices of intra-EU flights. Not really rich people.
- slowmotiony 4y ago
  This post is so out of touch with regular people I don't even know how to answer. It's just ridiculous.
  - anotherhue 4y ago
    Tell that to the people who live near a border and have their phones frequently associate with a tower on the ‘wrong’ side. I think your post is in poor taste.
themoonisachees 4y ago
Competition only gets you so far in spaces where conyism, corruption and monopolies are in place. For example, the eu could have tried to promote competition by encouraging carriers to make deals in other countries to get roaming charges down, but the truth is that the deals were already made, just that it wasn't advantageous to carriers to drive down the prices, and stirring up competition by starting a new carrier is both infeasible and futile, because established carriers won't give you a better deal because they have a vested interest in the status quo. Regulation has gone swimmingly, especially when you consider that roaming charges were completely arbitrary. It costs a carrier functionally nothing to forward traffic to another carrier, eçept for whatever price that carrier has set arbitrarly. Regulation has given me a 25 Gb data cap when travelling, greatly increasing the quality of my vacations, allowing me access to information, safety tips and travel-oriented services as a tourist. Sure, carriers have lost some income over this (not all, only on european travel) but they are massively profitable, and should be treated as a public utility already.

brnt 4y ago

_Every_ European travels internationally. Have you seen our borders? If we drive 500km in any direction we probably crossed at least 3 borders. Really, the people that don't are rare.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago
Some people travel _far_ more than others and you can be pretty sure that the distribution mirrors the wealth distribution. I have seen our borders. I am European myself, with roots in more than one country.
- shaky-carrousel 4y ago
  Ah, no, not really. My family is not exactly wealthy, and they traveled frequently to France by car. And with Ryanair is incredibly cheap to travel nowadays.
  - hk__2 4y ago
    Yep. I’m always amazed when I hear Italian students with no money saying they went to Paris or London for less than €10 with Ryanair. For those who don’t like planes, there are low-cost bus companies over the whole continent. Trains are more expensive, but a Paris-Milan is still only €40 if you book in advance. The Instagram/TikTok feeds of 20-25 y/o are full of these lists of European cities you can visit in a weekend with a low budget. See also: Erasmus.
    - kergonath 4y ago
      Which is great. We need everyone to experience other countries’ cultures. This is the best way to keep the continent politically stable in the future. Well, as stable as it can be anyway. Avoiding another major war would be nice.
- kergonath 4y ago
  For the people who do it that often, roaming charges are not a problem. Even before they disappeared, they were not that expensive. The people who benefit most are those who cross a border to go to work, those with family in a different country, and normal people taking advantage of the unsustainably low prices of intra-EU flights. Not really rich people.
slowmotiony 4y ago
This post is so out of touch with regular people I don't even know how to answer. It's just ridiculous.
- anotherhue 4y ago
  Tell that to the people who live near a border and have their phones frequently associate with a tower on the ‘wrong’ side. I think your post is in poor taste.

themoonisachees 4y ago

Competition only gets you so far in spaces where conyism, corruption and monopolies are in place. For example, the eu could have tried to promote competition by encouraging carriers to make deals in other countries to get roaming charges down, but the truth is that the deals were already made, just that it wasn't advantageous to carriers to drive down the prices, and stirring up competition by starting a new carrier is both infeasible and futile, because established carriers won't give you a better deal because they have a vested interest in the status quo. Regulation has gone swimmingly, especially when you consider that roaming charges were completely arbitrary. It costs a carrier functionally nothing to forward traffic to another carrier, eçept for whatever price that carrier has set arbitrarly. Regulation has given me a 25 Gb data cap when travelling, greatly increasing the quality of my vacations, allowing me access to information, safety tips and travel-oriented services as a tourist. Sure, carriers have lost some income over this (not all, only on european travel) but they are massively profitable, and should be treated as a public utility already.