Roaming will be banned in 2017, and from April 30, 2016, surcharges for
roaming will be capped at a maximum of €0.05 per minute for calls, €0.02 for
SMSs and €0.05 per megabyte for data.
So in fact €1 = 20MB, or assuming a typical instagram image is 250KB, 80 instagram images. That's still pricey in my book. Background app updates... 200MB please, that's going to be €10.
It doesn't make clear though if you will be able to use your program with roaming from April 2016 —they say explicitly you will be able from 2017.
Data charges without a data-plan are very expensive. Also it isn't still clear what will happen on prepaid card numbers, which many people choose as the only way to have a pay as you go service with reasonable charges.
> The fair use safeguard also prevents, when necessary, abusive use of roaming services, such as 'permanent roaming', which otherwise could undermine domestic markets.
Personally, I don't think this should exist. Imagine it saying in the US that the "fair use safeguard prevents people from using a cheaper cellphone service from another state".
That would be absurd right? I see it the same way in the EU. It's like they are trying to prevent competition within EU and maintain local monopolies. God forbid a carrier from one country could actually pose a threat to one in another country!
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around. They keep mentioning "Open Internet" as well, but there are a ton of exceptions in this new directive.
Günther Oettinger from the EU Commission has been the worst in this whole thing. He has been pushing for local ISP monopolies, extended customer lock-in and so on from the moment he became the Commissioner for Digital Economy. I think he's also supposed to be a free market, right-wing guy, but he's probably just corrupt.
Three [1] exists in both the UK and Ireland, and has an "all you can eat" bundle [2] in Ireland, for €20/month, but their closest deal in the UK is £17.00/month on a 12 month contract. They also provide a "Like Home" service, where your bundles apply outside your home country, so I can use my UK mobile data/text/call allowance in Ireland and Vice versa. Despite not having roaming rates, It's still cheaper for me to use my UK sim here and have a separate one for home, as calling the UK from Ireland or vice versa on a phone incurs costs that aren't part of the standard bundles.
Can anyone shed some light what happened to alternative roaming providers? [0] Seems like they are the perfect solution to affordable EU wide roaming, but nobody is doing it. Is there something I don't know that prevents companies from offering this service?
Well, the EU decided that it was going to ban roaming charges!
The only reason customers would sign up to ARPs is to avoid expensive roaming charges. It's been apparent since before the ARP/LBO legislation came into effect that the EU was planning to eliminate roaming charges altogether within a few years. So, potential ARPs were faced with the prospect of operating for just a couple of years before their market effectively vanished.
It also didn't help that the mobile network operators dragged their heels on entering into agreements with the ARPs that did try to enter the market.
My Danish phone company 3 (which does business in a lot of different countries as well) offers a service called 3LikeHome.
3LikeHome lets you roam in 18 different countries, the data used is taken from your allowance, and you can call home for normal price.
I am a dane living in London, and even though they say it isn't for longer stays abroad, I have been using my danish number in the UK for over a year without any issues.
I guess there is no reasons for alternative roaming provides when regular phone companies makes these changes themselves.
Finally. Pre-iPhone, I was always able to use my GPRS/3G phones in various countries for free using data roaming. It would just use my normal (unlimited) megabytes. I could even tether unofficially.
Then the iPhone came out, and an “unlimited international data” plan was an additional $60/month, I believe. Basically doubling the monthly cost, and that didn’t have tethering.
THEN, they got rid of that altogether, and ever since it’s been a scramble in every country to buy a SIM card just to pay local rates and not get ripped off. It’s all the same internet… if you’re not at home and roaming agreements exist, the carriers should just be forced to pay each other fair rates.
Maybe it was different in the states, but this legislation applies to the EU and I can definitely remember paying ridiculous roaming charges in Europe pre-iPhone (on my Nokia E71!).
Several places/providers in Europe have allowed or do allow you to use your normal data plan for free whilst abroad. I got mine a couple of years ago, without even looking for that particular benefit.
For what I'm concerned this is water down the bridge. The many years of excessive roaming fees have conditioned me to either switch of data altogether - relying on wifi instead - or use a local SIM when going abroad. As this still is a lot more affordable and I still fail to see the grounds for any extra fees when using a network owned by the same company which happens to lie on the other side of an arbitrary border I don't see any reason to change my habits.
The problem with these sorts of legislature as I've experienced is that while the theory seems quite appealing it never really works as you would expect.
Canada did a similar thing a couple years ago. The CRTC imposed a law where an individual could only incur a maximum of $50 in data overage charges locally, and $100 when roaming.
I was ecstatic when this was announced. And then one month I went over on data by $50. And then my data was cut off until I bought a "pack".
So yes, your phone bill will be unsurprising at the end of the month, but now your carrier will expect you to purchase a bucket of "roaming data" in the form of an add-on or package to your regular phone plan so that you can post your selfies with the Eiffel Tower in real time.
This will bring consequences, since, for example, package for uncapped unthrottled unlimited data+calls+messages is 19.94€ (Latvia), which is much cheaper than same packages in other countries.
From what I've understood operators will reintroduce wholsesale roaming prices, which means that home operator will still pay for traffic while their clients are roaming.
This will bring us cheaper roaming but we will most likely have two separate packages - for domestic use and capped ones while roaming.
This is a step in the right direction. The initial intent of GSM was to have a phone you could take anywhere in the world - and it would just work. Instead, companies and countries erected huge hurdles to true roaming with high voice and data costs. This will work - very similarly to how T-Mobile in the US has made data roaming "free" in a 100+ countries..
Bad that it is delayed by 5 months, a year ago it was planned to happen since mid January 2017. Good that they also introduced another intermediate tariff reduction since April 2016, which gets calls cheaper by at least 4x. After this, personally i will no longer care about what it costs, it is cheap enough.
Nice idea in politics, in practice it will take much longer to be fully implemented. The mobile grid system in Europe is so scattered and non integrated, that technically this is not simple to achieve within a year.
To be honest i cant back this up with arguments and/or data. But this is what i heard from telecom specialists in the field.
This has been in the works for years, so telecoms have had plenty of time to get ready. They've also been offering much better roaming rates the past few years within Europe.
[+] [-] doque|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] contingencies|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andmarios|10 years ago|reply
Data charges without a data-plan are very expensive. Also it isn't still clear what will happen on prepaid card numbers, which many people choose as the only way to have a pay as you go service with reasonable charges.
[+] [-] znq|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CraigRood|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] higherpurpose|10 years ago|reply
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5275_en.htm
Personally, I don't think this should exist. Imagine it saying in the US that the "fair use safeguard prevents people from using a cheaper cellphone service from another state".
That would be absurd right? I see it the same way in the EU. It's like they are trying to prevent competition within EU and maintain local monopolies. God forbid a carrier from one country could actually pose a threat to one in another country!
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around. They keep mentioning "Open Internet" as well, but there are a ton of exceptions in this new directive.
Günther Oettinger from the EU Commission has been the worst in this whole thing. He has been pushing for local ISP monopolies, extended customer lock-in and so on from the moment he became the Commissioner for Digital Economy. I think he's also supposed to be a free market, right-wing guy, but he's probably just corrupt.
https://gigaom.com/2014/11/07/let-isps-lock-their-customers-...
[+] [-] maccard|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.three.co.uk/ http://www.three.ie/ [2] http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-only/
[+] [-] skrause|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] babatong|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmb|10 years ago|reply
0: http://www.slideshare.net/Computaris/eu-roaming-regulations
[+] [-] jackgavigan|10 years ago|reply
The only reason customers would sign up to ARPs is to avoid expensive roaming charges. It's been apparent since before the ARP/LBO legislation came into effect that the EU was planning to eliminate roaming charges altogether within a few years. So, potential ARPs were faced with the prospect of operating for just a couple of years before their market effectively vanished.
It also didn't help that the mobile network operators dragged their heels on entering into agreements with the ARPs that did try to enter the market.
[+] [-] kawsper|10 years ago|reply
3LikeHome lets you roam in 18 different countries, the data used is taken from your allowance, and you can call home for normal price.
I am a dane living in London, and even though they say it isn't for longer stays abroad, I have been using my danish number in the UK for over a year without any issues.
I guess there is no reasons for alternative roaming provides when regular phone companies makes these changes themselves.
[+] [-] benguild|10 years ago|reply
Then the iPhone came out, and an “unlimited international data” plan was an additional $60/month, I believe. Basically doubling the monthly cost, and that didn’t have tethering.
THEN, they got rid of that altogether, and ever since it’s been a scramble in every country to buy a SIM card just to pay local rates and not get ripped off. It’s all the same internet… if you’re not at home and roaming agreements exist, the carriers should just be forced to pay each other fair rates.
[+] [-] wrboyce|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sambe|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Oletros|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnDoe365|10 years ago|reply
Rather unfair.
[+] [-] Yetanfou|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acrooks|10 years ago|reply
The problem with these sorts of legislature as I've experienced is that while the theory seems quite appealing it never really works as you would expect.
Canada did a similar thing a couple years ago. The CRTC imposed a law where an individual could only incur a maximum of $50 in data overage charges locally, and $100 when roaming. I was ecstatic when this was announced. And then one month I went over on data by $50. And then my data was cut off until I bought a "pack".
So yes, your phone bill will be unsurprising at the end of the month, but now your carrier will expect you to purchase a bucket of "roaming data" in the form of an add-on or package to your regular phone plan so that you can post your selfies with the Eiffel Tower in real time.
[+] [-] laacz|10 years ago|reply
From what I've understood operators will reintroduce wholsesale roaming prices, which means that home operator will still pay for traffic while their clients are roaming.
This will bring us cheaper roaming but we will most likely have two separate packages - for domestic use and capped ones while roaming.
[+] [-] anonu|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anovikov|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legulere|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edent|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeeWEE|10 years ago|reply
To be honest i cant back this up with arguments and/or data. But this is what i heard from telecom specialists in the field.
[+] [-] bbrazil|10 years ago|reply