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

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.