
Europe drafts law to ban mobile roaming charges - Libertatea
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/sep/05/europe-law-ban-mobile-roaming-charges
======
masklinn
> Her proposals have faced fierce opposition from the largest networks,
> including Vodafone, Orange and Telefónica, which say the end of roaming
> within Europe could cost them €7bn (£5.9bn).

Delicious tears.

Though I object to the use of the word "cost", it will remove unmerited
earnings but will not add costs to their balance sheet: notice how the
operators whining the most are the pan-european ones? That's because they can
currently charge roaming fees for operations within their network, fleecing
their own users.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> it will remove unmerited earnings

If people are currently paying roaming costs, then the earnings are clearly
merited. You might find the practice distasteful, and wish it did not exist,
but that does not make it illegitimate; they found something the market would
pay for, and successfully got the market to pay for it.

There's no monopoly on cell carriers, as evidenced by the three separate
carriers mentioned just in the sentence you quoted.

~~~
burgerz
The fact that this was downvoted shows people on HN don't understand how the
free market works. Adding more and more regulation only makes things worse for
the end paying customer. Good luck.

~~~
matwood
_Adding more and more regulation only makes things worse for the end paying
customer._

This is simply not universally true. The cell market doesn't exist without
regulation. If any company can throw up a tower on any frequency and start a
cell company the end paying customer is going to have a horrible experience.

~~~
jpadkins
like the wifi market? Oh right, open spectrum laws actually create useful
services for consumers.

It is a fallacy to believe that frequency regulation is needed for services to
come to market. Coopetition does happen in the real world (see all the devices
made for open spectrum like 2.4ghz)

~~~
kd0amg
_like the wifi market?_

47 CFR 15 (and other countries' equivalents) probably counts as regulations.

------
zrgiu_
This is one of the things the EU is really good at: making people-centric
decisions, instead of corporation-helping choices. This roaming-charges change
has actually been a long time coming, with forced decreases in tariffs for a
while now, so it shouldn't surprise anyone. I just wish some similar agreement
can be reached (in time) with countries outside the EU.

~~~
CaptainZapp
> I just wish some similar agreement can be reached (in time) with countries
> outside the EU.

Intercontinental roaming charges are a bad joke (3$ incoming, 5$ out and yes,
that's per minute) . What I do is to get a local SIM and communicate the
number to those contacts that need it.

Internet (sometimes 20$ per MB and yes, you read that right) is less of a
problem due the ubiquity of free WLANs.

Another really excellent thing the EU did is to mandate mini USB as phone
chargers. With the noticeable exception of Apple every newer phone can be
charged with any newer charger. This used to be a major pet peevee of mine.

~~~
zrgiu_
I don't know if this still the case, but a while ago i bought an iPhone from
UK (after the mini USB mandate), and it came with an adapter to miniUSB in the
box. Even Apple had to abide to the new regulation.

As for the roaming charges, I completely agree. Even now, within Europe, it's
really bad for data. I've traveled through 10 EU countries in the last 3
months, and had to buy 7 SIM cards, as my home carrier charges 2EUR for 5MB. I
was lucky with my 3LikeHome sim card from Austria, which you can use with your
home rates in a few other countries.

~~~
masklinn
> it came with an adapter to miniUSB in the box

Yeah but that's an adapter, even though it does abide by the rules you still
have to carry the adapter around. Most manufacturers just switched to miniUSB
entirely, so you don't need an adapter, any combination of charger and phone
should work (in practice there may be issues with undervoltage, I've seen
combinations of phones and chargers not work)

~~~
desas
There's not even rules, the EU just asked them to sort it out, otherwise it
would legislate so they had have a common standard.

~~~
celticninja
even better

------
antr
I hope this is the tip of the iceberg of better things to come.

One of the most disruptive ideas the EU is working on (among alternatives) is
detaching the network from the operators. This can considerably reduce network
capex, homogenise network technology and allow for a real single EU telecom
space.

By having operators become clients of a single network users will benefit from
increase pan-EU competition, with more competitive and transparent rates.

This has been partly done at national levels in similar sectors, specially in
the gas and electricity sectors (see National Grid in the UK, Snam Rete Gas &
Terna in Italy, etc.). Gas and electricity networks are private but regulated,
and third parties have access rights to the network to retail gas &
electricity. In this telecom case, operators don't have commodity risk, which
makes third-party access to the network infinitely easier.

Fingers crossed.

~~~
easytiger
> One of the most disruptive ideas the EU is working on (among alternatives)
> is detaching the network utilizes operators.

Since i was quite young it blew my mind that we didn't have one universal
network which every network utilises. It is clearly more efficient, removes
redundancy, spreads costs.

~~~
mavhc
Networks can never work with capitalism, as there's more benefit to extending
an existing network than creating multiple competing networks. Roads,
Internet, wired phones. Thus the network might as well be owned and run by the
government, and access to it sold to the public/companies.

~~~
lake99
I'm quite ignorant of the specifics of European and American telecom
ecosystems. But I clearly remember the time when the network was owned and run
solely by the Indian government. It was horrible. In the 80s, when we applied
for a telephone line, we typically had to wait for about three years for it to
be installed. To call someone in a different city, we'd have to place a "trunk
call": call an operator, and request a line. The operator would call back when
the line became available, typically an hour later. With private industry,
even those who live each week hand-to-mouth can afford to carry around cell
phones.

> Thus the network might as well be owned and run by the government...

Given a choice, I'd rather not live in such an ecosystem. Again.

------
UnoriginalGuy
This is a "bad thing." And here is why:

I hate roaming charges as much as anyone, nobody wants to pay 200%+ when they
go to France or anywhere else within the EU. That being said, competition at
least around here for mobile/3G is extremely healthy, prices have come down
year on year and the choice/availability has gone up.

What I fear would happen if this went into force is that many (all?) of the
smaller operators would go out of business overnight as they couldn't find a
network within all continental european countries who will roam for them at a
reasonable price.

Then you'll have Orange/Vodafone/etc who own a lot of the infrastructure
across europe leverage that so essentially they're the only competitive player
and get to set the prices however they want. They'll sell their subsidiaries
roaming at X and their competition roaming at X*1,000.

Just look at the US: Their networks are inter-state, and as a result of having
to cover such a large landmass it is almost non competitive. You have three
companies controlling the whole country. Prices are extremely high and
services/choice is poor.

I'd take what we have now, roaming charges and all, over a three network
oligopoly.

~~~
r3m6
>They'll sell their subsidiaries roaming at X and their competition roaming at
X*1,000.

I doubt that would be legal. Anyone knows for sure?

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
As far as I know the EU does cap roaming charges already, and they could
continue to do so in the future. But as far as I know there is no rule which
forces companies to charge equal prices for their competition and their
subsidiaries across borders.

For one example, Vodafone UK for £3 will let you use your "UK minutes, texts,
and data" in any european country. The reason they're able to offer that is
because Vodafone runs networks in most european countries.

~~~
Fuxy
Maintaining infrastructure doesn't become more expensive just because the
competition is using it when roaming. What they're doing is basically double
dipping charging customers for service and competitors for roaming which the
network are passing along to the customers.

However you look at it the customer is the one getting screwed here. They are
only bitching because they're being forced to re think their business model
and make it more fair.

When you think that Vodaphone is doing it even if you're still using their
network just in another country it makes you think what's the difference
between this and stealing? They're not competing with themselves so it's
basically a scheme to make more money.

~~~
DougWebb
I'm not sure that's true. If Company A builds out a bunch of infrastructure
but it's mostly used by Company B's customers, then Company A isn't getting
the earnings it needs to pay back the infrastructure investment. Either
Company B's customers need to send some revenue to Company A, or Company A is
going to go out of business, possibly taking the infrastructure with it.
Roaming fees, whether paid by the customers, the companies, or both, are
necessary to support building and maintaining the infrastructure.

Now, when Company A and Company B are actually two divisions of the same
parent company (which is apparently often the case for Vodaphone) then you're
right; the roaming fees are double-dipping.

~~~
Fuxy
Company A is still able to adjust pricing on a global level (all customers) to
compensate. If too many of Company B's customers go on Company A's network
pricing will increase until they start choosing cheaper networks automatically
balancing load and keeping prices at a similar point.

Plus we're talking about roaming here it's not like a lot of people decide to
go on vacation at the same time and stay there for years until the company
collapses.

------
nohuck13
Am I the only on that thinks this is a bit of an overreach? Seems to me, good
justifications for legislating would be

-If customers were being tricked into paying roaming charges in nefarious ways;

-If there were serious externalities somehow not being included in the roaming charge transaction

-If there were monopolistic / market manipulating behaviour going on.

-If the companies were subject to a tragedy-of-the-commons situation where private resolution was not feasible (they're not- the public broadcast spectrum is both rival and excludable in practice).

Instead, the state interest according to Kroes is that it's an "irritant."
This kind of top-down control seems a bit counter to the hacker/startup ethos.

Edit: if you're going to down vote, please can you comment and have a
dialogue?

~~~
jakobe
> If customers were being tricked into paying roaming charges in nefarious
> ways

If your phone rings abroad, and you don't pick it up, and the call goes to
voicemail, they charge you for an incoming call and for an outgoing call. Even
if the caller doesn't speak on your voicemail, you are billed at least 1
minute active + 1 minute passive.

Assume you're an Austrian, and you miss 3 calls while in Montenegro, that's
20€ in unexpected charges.

~~~
adrinavarro
Huh?

Then there's something wrong with your operator. Roaming charges are for the
"international" segment: from home, to the country you are, and from the
country you are to home. That's why you pay extra to make calls, and that's
why you get to pay when you receive calls.

But it's also "opt-in": you only pay for what you accept. You won't pay for
SMS because you can't elect to receive them or not. And, if you miss, or
reject a call, it goes to your voicemail. And the voicemail is in your country
operator's. So, of course, you won't pay. Unless you have a weird phone and
the voicemail is in your phone. Then turn off your weird mobile phone.

~~~
vidarh
That voicemails are not subject to roaming charges within the EU is a quite
recent thing, and I'm not sure if it's a result of regulation or if the
operators have just pre-empted being forced to do it. When roaming outside of
the EU, you can still expect to get hit with massive charges for receiving
voicemail.

It's result of a quirk of how voicemail calls get routed: If you set up call
diversion to your voicemail with your network, you'd not pay anything.

But if you fail to answer, or divert calls to voicemail with your phone, the
calls would get routed to the network your phone is active in, you'd fail to
answer, and the call would get routed back by the operator you're roaming
with, rather than having that operator somehow just signal that the calls
should be diverted at source, and you'd get to pay for the pleasure.

At least that's the excuse the operators used. Of course it was particularly
shitty that they'd charge people extortionate rates due to shortcomings of the
way they do call routing.

~~~
adrinavarro
I've been travelling for a number of years (when a MB in Europe was around
10€), inside and outside Europe, and never ever had this happen, or heard
about this happening.

Probably something intentionally made by your operator — but in Spain, I don't
know of a single mobile operator who does not route voicemail at their own
network level.

------
Systemic33
As a resident in Denmark, this is awesome news. It really sucks that you've
got so many internet connected things, but after 300km MAX, you are on the
other side of the border, and you are reduced to feature phone-like
capabilities (Thanks Nokia/HERE for offline maps).

To people from US; Imagine living on the east coast (with the smaller states)
and every time you move outside of your state, you had to use a feature phone.

~~~
maxsilver
We don't have to imagine it -- that _is_ how it is in the US.

For example, if you are on T-Mobile USA, living on the east coast, anytime you
drive west, after about 100km your "4G" smartphone is reduced to a feature
phone (either on T-Mobile's own GRPS/EDGE-only network, or hyper-restricted
voice/sms-only roaming on AT&T).

This happens even if the other operators have extensive 3G/4G/LTE networks
available in those cities.

~~~
Systemic33
Aren't AT&T, Verizon, etc, nation-wide operators?

~~~
aestra
Yes, they are. HOWEVER:

The USA is __HUGE __. It 's not cost effective to put data where every inch of
land is covered, ever slow data (EDGE). There's a ton of sparsely populated
land, and rural areas. T-Mobile is a small operator and has the crappiest
network coverage. It is 1000x better than it was 4 years ago, as they are
adding more coverage, but it is expensive and slow. T-mobile is the worst for
data coverage, and voice coverage. I had them for years, and I eventually
dropped them for Verizon because I was finding myself without any cellphone
service so often, because I travel often, and I find myself in rural areas. If
I stayed in the city all the time it would work for me. That means no voice,
no SMS, no data.

Take a look at T-Mobile's 3G and 4G coverage map (and voice):

[http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx/](http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage/pcc.aspx/)

Verizon:

[http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/support/coverage-
locator](http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/support/coverage-locator)

Sprint:

[http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp](http://coverage.sprint.com/IMPACT.jsp)

AT&T:

[http://www.att.com/maps/wireless-
coverage.html](http://www.att.com/maps/wireless-coverage.html)

The other big issue is we have two standards here. GSM and CDMA. GSM is what
T-Mobile and AT&T use, and CDMA is what Verizon and Sprint use. These can't
play nice-nice with each other. Plus AT&T's 3G was different from T-Mobile's
3G so a AT&T 3G phone couldn't work with T-Moble's 3G signal and vice-visa.

With 4G LTE, I _believe_ this is a standard that both GSM and CDMA are
"upgrading" to. I know that my CDMA phone needed a SIM card to work with the
4G LTE network (CDMA cards previously didn't require SIM cards).

------
felxh
Long overdue, especially for people living in the smaller EU countries, where
driving ~3 hours in any direction will render your smartphone useless (or very
expensive). Large carriers, which are complaining the loudest, shouldn't have
an issue with this, since they are present in virtually all EU member states.

~~~
masklinn
Of course they have an issue, _because_ they're present in virtually all of
the EU it's completely free money for them right now.

~~~
easytiger
Three in the UK clearly saw this coming and recently made roaming in several
countries completely part of your monthly package

~~~
mjs
The countries are: Ireland, Australia, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden and
Denmark.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23896896](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23896896)

(This doesn't look to be symmetric, for some reason--if you're a Three
customer in one of those countries I don't think you avoid roaming charges in
the UK.)

~~~
crocowhile
Three customers in Italy had the no-extra-charge-when-roaming feature already
4-5 years ago actually. That was both for data and voice.
[http://www.tre.it/opzioni/estero/all-estero-come-a-
casa](http://www.tre.it/opzioni/estero/all-estero-come-a-casa) EDIT: I see
there was a bit of overhead actually. not quite the same tariff.

------
kalleboo
> Other new measures include open internet safeguards to stop broadband
> companies blocking legal but competing websites and services such as Skype

I also like the look of this. Not quite full network neutrality but in the
same spirit.

------
tluyben2
About time. I'm waiting for this for a while. I travel a lot in EU and it's
very annoying going around with a bag of sims in my pocket. Kroes does some
nice things; hopefully it'll go through.

------
jcrei
This could have the potential to become quite disruptive. If there are no
roaming charges, I will be free to select any operator from any EU country and
am not stuck with the ones where I reside. This will increase competition, and
lower prices (or service levels will increase).

~~~
Jacqued
I don't know about the situation in most of Europe, but I think at least some
countries could be severely disrupted by French operators, which seen some
very low cost alternatives emerge since the irruption of a 4th operator in
early 2012.

2h + SMS only costs 2€/mo, where it used to be 16-25€ only two years ago ; and
the full package (unlimited everything, with data bandwith capped after 3GB)
20€

Now if there's a country with even cheaper mobile plans... I'd like to see
that

~~~
solnyshok
Latvia - Tele2, 9eur for unlinited domestic calls/sms+2GB of full speed, after
that capped to 64kbps but still unlimited.

------
borispavlovic
This will eventually lead to mobile phone charges balancing all over the
European continent. Otherwise people in Denmark will be using Bulgarian or
Romanian pre-paid SIM cards buying credit online assuming that mobile
providers can't charge the same for the services in richer and poorer
countries.

~~~
jakub_g
This could be the case for the internet, but AFAIU not (so far) for the calls
or SMS. No roaming fees means that if you have a Bulgarian SIM and live in
Denmark and you call a Bulgarian number, you will pay as if you were in
Bulgaria. But they can still tax you more when you're calling to the Danish or
any non-Bulgarian number.

Anyway, for people who rather use internet than make phone calls, this can be
a good deal indeed.

~~~
aestra
When we are all using VoIP rather than traditional voice, this is relevant.

------
sklivvz1971
About time... companies like 3 and vodafone are basically the same network all
over Europe, there is no justification for any roaming charges

------
porsager
This is definitely not a good thing. It is a step in the wrong direction that
the European Union gains more power to regulate the market in this fashion.

The reason operators are able to charge for roaming as they do, has a lot to
do with the fact that the telecommunication business isn't a free business.
Currently only a select few in each country who are paying a large licensing
fee are allowed to set up the different types of networks (GSM, UMTS etc).
What is happening is you grant special benefits to the operators, so they are
working in a protected environment. Of course they are going to charge extra
if no-one is there to bid lower.

What the EU is doing right now is trying to fix a symptom created by an
already wacky system that their member states have created themselves.

~~~
vidarh
> Currently only a select few in each country who are paying a large licensing
> fee are allowed to set up the different types of networks

Just like in pretty much every country in the world. Spectrum is a public
resource, and not an infinite one. Every allocation given to a private company
deprives society of other potential uses of that spectrum.

The EU communications market is already vastly more competitive than e.g. the
US market in many areas, _thanks_ to extensive regulation to force unbundling
of a lot of network and consumer services. This is about fixing some of the
remaining problems, yes.

If anything, the regulation of the communications market in the EU is both one
of the biggest successes in recent years, and one of the areas where EU
decisions are most popular with EU citizens.

~~~
porsager
That is exactly the Point. Spectrum is scarce, and just like land areas are
treated(mostly) with property rights, so should radio waves. That it
historically has been mistreated doesn't make the solution in the subject any
better.

------
denzil_correa
Long time coming. India (which is a pretty huge country) did away with roaming
(incoming call) charges back in 2003. What followed, was a telecom revolution;
albeit with the evil of corruption along the way but good did come out of
sensible and foresight.

------
zokier
Interestingly enough (Telia)Sonera has already removed (some) of it's roaming
charges when roaming on their own network. I think that's quite nice of them,
even though it probably was mostly a marketing move preempting this EU
decision.

~~~
spurgu
Yeah I just recently found out about it. Awesome news as I just moved from
Finland to Estonia (but will spend a lot of time in Finland too) a week ago.
It would be a hassle with two SIM-cards. It has always sucked to go on trips
through many countries where you really could use affordable data, to book
hotels/hostels, view Google Maps, Translate among a million small things that
make mobile internet useful in the first place. I really love this about the
EU; making decisions for the people instead of corporations.

------
stingraycharles
Explain to me, why wouldn't this merely result in the phone companies charging
higher monthly fees?

~~~
mcv
Most of the phone market is very transparent. It's just the roaming charges
that make them feel like a bait and switch. Higher monthly fees are better
than roaming charges, because there's clear and transparent competition there.

------
kayoone
Hear hear, its costs them 7bn ? How about 7bn less revenue from something that
is so overpriced its not even funny. Im glad WhatsApp already killed SMS in
many countries, the money made on overpriced SMS/MMS must have been
ridiculous..

I hope IP will replace all the other stuff eventually. If your abroad its
relatively easy to find a Wifi and use Skype/Viber/WhatsApp, so we just need
to get even more Wifi!

------
netcan
Good or bad this _is_ central planning, or something very close to it. Price
controls. Mandated alliances. Minimum coverage requirements.

~~~
SEMW
> " _From 2014, customers would be able to keep costs down by selecting
> another provider for calls, texts and internet data services while
> travelling, if their own network charges extra for service abroad. They
> could do this without having to change their phone number or buy a new sim
> card._ "

Seems to me like one of the goals of the new regime is to move at least a bit
_away_ from the (somewhat clumsy) regulatory approach of setting price
controls, in favour of an approach of reducing transactional costs in order to
enable free-market competition between providers in different countries.

------
drchaos
As much as I hate the outrageous high roaming charges, I'm not sure regulating
them completely away is the best idea. Dictating companies how much and for
what they can charge is one of the strongest possible market intervention, and
may very well lead to less competition and therefore, higher prices and
(eventually) less innovation.

Personally I think the same effect could be achieved by a much smaller
intervention, namely decoupling billing from physical SIM cards. If it was
possible to get the local (prepaid) rate without having to get a local SIM
card (which, even in 2013, is often a somewhat difficult procedure, especially
if you don't speak the local language), there would not only be no reason for
roaming charges any more (just get a cheap prepaid rate and you are set), but
there would also be more (not less) competition, because one could switch
providers any time, even in his own country. The phone number, of course,
should remain bound to the SIM card, just the billing should be "virtualized".

------
martinml
While it is nice the EU is regulating the mobile phone market like this, it
sometimes creates funny situations. In many countries it's cheaper to send an
SMS _being abroad_. Right now the regulated cap for an SMS sent in roaming is
at €0.09 and will be €0.06 in 2014, but sending texts from your country often
costs €0.15 :)

~~~
gaius
It's not unusual to find while roaming that MMS is cheaper than SMS. As in it
would be cheaper for me to write out my message by hand, take a photo of it
and sent that, than just to send a text message.

------
benev
About four years ago I lived in Tanzania. I had a sim card from Zain(* ). As
standard, it had no roaming charges in East Africa and parts of the middle
east. In foreign countries, you could even make calls at the local rate. It's
great to see Europe catching up.

* Now (I think) part of Airtel.

------
pisarzp
I think this is great, and I cannot wait for this to happen, but we also
should credit some operators for their current efforts.

O2 launched in UK Tu Go app which I find really great. It basically allows you
to make and receive calls (and text messages) over wifi . Not only it is great
if you have spotty reception at home, but you can use your phone whenever you
find public wifi abroad.

------
xlevus
Interestingly, Hutchinson/Three has started to remove global roaming fees from
their own network.

[http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home?id=1229](http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home?id=1229)

------
smutticus
Roaming charge made more sense when you were actually roaming to another
carrier when you went to another country. But now that carriers in the EU are
almost all trans-national roaming charges make less sense. They're just a
relic of the past.

------
ogdoad
I thought it was already passed law, to come into effect July 2014. Guess I
was wrong. In any case, it'd be nice not to have roaming data charges.

------
OmIsMyShield
I applaud this - but it feels a bit like treating the symptom, a cause being
regulation that helped create an oligopoly.

------
driverdan
I'm appalled by all the anti free market comments here. Governments have no
business dictating simple contractual agreements such as this. So long as
governments allow adequate competition the markets will meet customer demands.

~~~
DanBC
> So long as governments allow adequate competition the markets will meet
> customer demands.

This is demonstrably not the case with cell phone service providers.

Mobile telephony providers use deliberately confusing pricing to prevent price
comparison. They use contract lock in to prevent customers switching
contracts. They exploit the apathy and inertia of customers.

What would work in an ideal situation is not what would work with the
situation we have. Tightly regulated, often government owned, communication
networks are being deregulated, split off from those government owned
companies, while expanding into new markets.

We need regulation to prevent incumbents from exploiting their government-
subsidized position, and to protect naive users from themselves.

~~~
driverdan
> Mobile telephony providers use deliberately confusing pricing to prevent
> price comparison. They use contract lock in to prevent customers switching
> contracts. They exploit the apathy and inertia of customers.

There are many providers now who don't require contracts. Every provider in
the US has some sort of prepaid / no contract plan. The prices are much better
than contract plans too, at least in the US.

> We need regulation to prevent incumbents from exploiting their government-
> subsidized position, and to protect naive users from themselves.

No, you highlighted one of the problems. The government needs to stop backing
monopolies / oligopolies and allow competition to flourish. Government
involvement always compounds itself. Subsidization and promotion requires
regulation later to compensate for the lack of a free market.

