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EU sets timeline for single telecom market
- stephengillie 13y agoAre telecoms which operate in one country (i.e. Germany) unable to operate in neighboring countries (i.e. France)?
- mtgx 13y agoThere are some big ones like Vodafone, Orange, OTE, T-mobile, Telefonica, which operate in multiple countries, but I think even if you use Orange in one country, and go visit another country with Orange, you still pay for roaming, so I guess they are seen as different entities in each country and she wants the groups to be seen as single entities. Hopefully this won't slow down competition like in US, and allow for price fixing.
- claudius 13y agoEurope is populated far more densely than the US and there is plenty of competition in individual markets (e.g. Germany), so I doubt that this will slow down competition. What I really hope it will achieve is abolishment of roaming in any particular form – I have a German contract with German O2, currently stay in the UK and am usually logged in(?) to O2 UK’s network. Yet this is ‘roaming’ and forces me to pay more for calls, while paying less for texts (€0.1 per text by EU regulation rather than unregulated €0.19 at home).
- masklinn 13y ago> What I really hope it will achieve is abolishment of roaming in any particular form I'd also like cross-EU number portability, I moved country a few years ago and had to change my mobile phone number, that was annoying.
- masklinn 13y agoNo (see: Orange, Telefónica or Deutsche Telecom), but each operation will be its own entity with different regulations, different network and different numbering availability. Each country is its own market. The goal here is apparently to have a single pan-european market, and allow cross-country organizations where e.g. O2 (Telefónica) would be the same O2 in every country where it has presence, without consumers having to pay for roaming and the like. An other goal is most likely cross-european number portability (e.g. moving from Italy to Slovenia, switching operator to a local slovenian one yet keeping the same number). On the other hand, they also hint at a desire for US-type consolidations and this is pushed by big telco operators, that's extremely worrying.
- shocks 13y agoNope. UK have Orange, Italy have WIND. They are the same company, have the same branding - same everything - but it still costs me an arm and a leg to use my phone when I'm in Italy.
- antninja 13y agoYes for mobiles. Licences are sold by each state separately. If they were sold by a new EU institution, there would be EU-wide operators instead of state-wide ones.
- Alf_InPogForm 13y agoDon't the telecoms companies make huge profits on roaming fees? Would this then mean that the companies would be pushing against this move?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- versk 13y agoI'm not an expert, But I'd imagine the opportunities for growth would override the desire to preserve revenue from roaming.
- DannyBee 13y agoI think you are confused ;) They'll continue to charge roaming fees anyway, right up until they lose a lawsuit over it. Why would they do anything else?
- icebraining 13y agoWhy would they lose a lawsuit over it?
- masklinn 13y agoBecause if the EU becomes a single telco market there is no justification for intra-EU roaming fees: the market itself is the "home network" and roaming fees are specifically when the device is outside its home network.
- antr 13y agoBecause that company which is operating a network across several EU countries (which is one market) is, among other things, discriminating against users based on their location in the EU. Remember that the EU was "born" with the main objective of creating a "single market" through the standardisation of laws across all member states.
- 13y ago
- freehunter 13y ago>“If one individual would like to watch high-definition films of what one petabyte means, it would take 13 years non-stop,” he added. I'm not sure what this means.
- jwoah12 13y agoPerhaps that 13 years of HD video data can fit in a petabyte?
- masklinn 13y agoYes, it seems to be a very confused way of saying "watching a petabyte of HD video", and completely fails at giving a sense of scale for a petabyte.
- jwoah12 13y agoI actually think it does a good job at giving a sense of scale for a petabyte in terms of video hours. "13 years of HD video" does a lot more for me than "1 million gigabytes," which was basically my frame of reference before. However that's only if you can actually interpret what it's trying to say.
- freehunter 13y agoYeah my trouble was that they referenced "how much is a petabyte" and "videos nonstop for 13 years" but failed to say "one petabyte of videos related to how big one petabyte is would take 13 years to watch". I think that explanation makes more sense.
- Retric 13y ago13 years of lossy compressed HD video perhaps. RAW 32 * 1920 * 1080 * 60FPS * 60seconds * 60 minutes /8bits ~= 1.6TB per hour and about 26days for a PetaByte.
- k-mcgrady 13y agoI really liked this until I read this sentence: >> "Europe has 1,200 fixed operators and over a hundred mobile operators. The US has six mobile operators and China has three." Prices and competition in the US are abysmal compared with most EU countries. The goal should be to reduce the number of duplicate operators (O2 + Telefonica), not get down to a small number of carriers with little competition.
- nakedrobot2 13y agoThe shameless and outrageous sodomy of the consumer by every telco in every EU country (especially when roaming) and the vested interest of continuing to sodomize consumers in this way makes me highly doubt that any of these companies have any interest at all in creating a "single telco" market as described in this article.
- Tuna-Fish 13y ago> The shameless and outrageous sodomy of the consumer by every telco in every EU country Speak for your country. I'm pretty happy with the competition in Finland.
- vetinari 13y agoWhen I'm at home, I'm also pretty happy with both voice and data package. However, I'm not at home right now and the roaming charges are outrageous. Forget about data (25 MB for 2 EUR?) and the voice also isn't something to write home about. Btw, UK HNers: could someone of you recommend data SIM of about half a gig, but one that is valid for one week and then I can forget about it? The operators I tried to ask were not happy to offer something non-recurring.
- koyote 13y agoHave you tried giffgaff? They offer 500mb for 5 quid, data only and no contract: http://giffgaff.com/goodybags http://giffgaff.com/goodybags