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This is still at the very high-level discussion stage. The key phrase: "“They agreed that this time next year we will have got rid of these charges,” a Brussel

by casca 13y ago

This is still at the very high-level discussion stage. The key phrase: "“They agreed that this time next year we will have got rid of these charges,” a Brussels source said" Also, it's not clear how this would be implemented. For example, Vodafone in the UK lets you pay £3 a day and use your calls, texts and data from Europe. Would that be acceptable? What happens to the smaller MVNOs who have been responsible for driving down prices who now need to make a whole lot of roaming agreements? Given that data is regularly more useful when roaming than calls, will this directive require free data roaming too or is it excluded? If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this. It will cost them very little to provide the service, mostly some modifications to their billing system. For those operators that only have national presence, they'll need to start making alliances and integrate systems with other operators in countries they're unfamiliar with in a different language. Original article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/telecoms/10119159/EU-to-end-mobile-roaming-charges-next-year.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol... (Edited to make clearer why a pan-European operator would support this)

amirmc 13y ago
> "If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this." Do you mean lobbying against this? If I were a pan-european operator, then I'm making 'free' money from my customers that travel across Europe with negligible increase in costs. Scrapping roaming charges means that advantage goes away. Indeed, the article you link to has the following: "The plans set up a clash between Brussels and telecoms bosses such as Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao, who in February called for a 'moratorium on regulation' in telecoms. He said industry had been a target for too long and it threatened employment. Neelie Kroes, the Commisisoner behind the reforms, told Mr Colao she would 'call your bluff'" Other than that, your questions are interesting. I'm on an MVNO (GiffGaff), which uses the O2 network. It'd be great if deals that the parent networks make are simply passed onto the MVNOs but we'll have to see.
kintamanimatt 13y ago
I'm under the impression that I would be able to use my plan from one country in another without regard for whether I'm actually roaming or not, for no extra cost. This would include data, and would be excellent for me (at the moment at least) considering I have a cheap unlimited data plan. I've seen it stated elsewhere that one of the ambitions of this plan is increased competition across borders, for example, operators from, say, the UK could compete with operators in the Netherlands.
- mseebach 13y ago
  That is what they seem to be promising (and we all know that then politicians promise something, that's how it's going to be). It's not clear how it will be implemented, and it's not clear why a dutch provider should honor a commitment for unlimited data that a UK provider has made to you.
  - hencq 13y ago
    Note that many providers are already active in multiple countries. For example Vodafone has business entities in the UK and the Netherlands, so those agreements should be relatively straightforward to set up.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      But many aren't, and none covers every country.
  - bostonvaulter2 13y ago
    Yes, and what happens if a provider in some small country sets up a limited network for very cheap with the intention of the majority of it's users being in different countries and thus other companies footing the bill.
    - claudius 13y ago
      If I understand this correctly, it is supposed to be free to the customer, not the provider. So it is not about whether provider A pays provider B if A's users roam in B's network, but whether A's users pay more to A while roaming.
      - mseebach 13y ago
        I hope not - because then it means that roaming isn't made free, but rather that giving you a good deal that only works on your home network - even if you want it and never travel - becomes illegal. This means that any business development that you can't agree with all of Europe on isn't going to happen. One country with poor 3G/4G infrastructure can block large, cheap data packages all over the EU. No, I hope the regulation is that providers have to sell access wholesale to foreign competitor at the same rate they sell it to themselves (or national MNVOs or something) - meaning roaming won't be free, it just won't be more expensive than getting a local SIM.
mseebach 13y ago
Yeah, I'd be interested in how this would be implemented as well. I'm guessing it's not as simple as "ending roaming charges" as that would be quite easy to game - setup a single-mast cell phone provider in the middle of a Finnish forest, and demand that all other providers carry your clients traffic for free. Clearly, the network in which another networks' clients are roaming must be compensated somehow, it's just that the price will be capped at some level.
kalleboo 13y ago
> If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this. It will cost them very little to provide the service, mostly some modifications to their billing system. I suspect it's more complicated than this, or they'd be more integrated already. My operator, Hutchinson Three (3) used to let their users roam in all the other worldwide 3 networks at no cost (UK, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Australia, etc) called 3LikeHome, but they eventually terminated it, claiming that due to their package roaming agreements (I've had it explained to me that most operators buy a roaming agreement bundle from a consolidator instead of negotiating one by one themselves), they couldn't limit their service in those countries to only roam on 3, and customers would continually roam onto other networks and rack up huge bills thinking they were connected to 3.
geden 13y ago
I'm from the UK and have just spent a long weekend in Barcelona and made use of the Vodafone £3 deal and I have to say it made a massive (positive) difference to the experience, much greater than I thought it would. This is compared to previous Euro trips where I feel like I've lost half my brain and even just snicking data on and off for little databursts lands you with £40 / day bills.

by casca 13y ago

amirmc 13y ago

> "If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this." Do you mean lobbying against this? If I were a pan-european operator, then I'm making 'free' money from my customers that travel across Europe with negligible increase in costs. Scrapping roaming charges means that advantage goes away. Indeed, the article you link to has the following: "The plans set up a clash between Brussels and telecoms bosses such as Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao, who in February called for a 'moratorium on regulation' in telecoms. He said industry had been a target for too long and it threatened employment. Neelie Kroes, the Commisisoner behind the reforms, told Mr Colao she would 'call your bluff'" Other than that, your questions are interesting. I'm on an MVNO (GiffGaff), which uses the O2 network. It'd be great if deals that the parent networks make are simply passed onto the MVNOs but we'll have to see.

kintamanimatt 13y ago

I'm under the impression that I would be able to use my plan from one country in another without regard for whether I'm actually roaming or not, for no extra cost. This would include data, and would be excellent for me (at the moment at least) considering I have a cheap unlimited data plan. I've seen it stated elsewhere that one of the ambitions of this plan is increased competition across borders, for example, operators from, say, the UK could compete with operators in the Netherlands.

mseebach 13y ago
That is what they seem to be promising (and we all know that then politicians promise something, that's how it's going to be). It's not clear how it will be implemented, and it's not clear why a dutch provider should honor a commitment for unlimited data that a UK provider has made to you.
- hencq 13y ago
  Note that many providers are already active in multiple countries. For example Vodafone has business entities in the UK and the Netherlands, so those agreements should be relatively straightforward to set up.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    But many aren't, and none covers every country.
- bostonvaulter2 13y ago
  Yes, and what happens if a provider in some small country sets up a limited network for very cheap with the intention of the majority of it's users being in different countries and thus other companies footing the bill.
  - claudius 13y ago
    If I understand this correctly, it is supposed to be free to the customer, not the provider. So it is not about whether provider A pays provider B if A's users roam in B's network, but whether A's users pay more to A while roaming.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      I hope not - because then it means that roaming isn't made free, but rather that giving you a good deal that only works on your home network - even if you want it and never travel - becomes illegal. This means that any business development that you can't agree with all of Europe on isn't going to happen. One country with poor 3G/4G infrastructure can block large, cheap data packages all over the EU. No, I hope the regulation is that providers have to sell access wholesale to foreign competitor at the same rate they sell it to themselves (or national MNVOs or something) - meaning roaming won't be free, it just won't be more expensive than getting a local SIM.

mseebach 13y ago

Yeah, I'd be interested in how this would be implemented as well. I'm guessing it's not as simple as "ending roaming charges" as that would be quite easy to game - setup a single-mast cell phone provider in the middle of a Finnish forest, and demand that all other providers carry your clients traffic for free. Clearly, the network in which another networks' clients are roaming must be compensated somehow, it's just that the price will be capped at some level.

kalleboo 13y ago

> If I was a pan-European mobile operator, I'd have been lobbying for this. It will cost them very little to provide the service, mostly some modifications to their billing system. I suspect it's more complicated than this, or they'd be more integrated already. My operator, Hutchinson Three (3) used to let their users roam in all the other worldwide 3 networks at no cost (UK, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Australia, etc) called 3LikeHome, but they eventually terminated it, claiming that due to their package roaming agreements (I've had it explained to me that most operators buy a roaming agreement bundle from a consolidator instead of negotiating one by one themselves), they couldn't limit their service in those countries to only roam on 3, and customers would continually roam onto other networks and rack up huge bills thinking they were connected to 3.

geden 13y ago

I'm from the UK and have just spent a long weekend in Barcelona and made use of the Vodafone £3 deal and I have to say it made a massive (positive) difference to the experience, much greater than I thought it would. This is compared to previous Euro trips where I feel like I've lost half my brain and even just snicking data on and off for little databursts lands you with £40 / day bills.