
Europe abolishes mobile phone roaming charges - nols
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/27/europe-abolishes-mobile-phone-roaming-charges
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JoshTriplett
I can't help but wonder if they solved the underlying problem, or just passed
it off to the carriers. If they banned carriers from imposing roaming charges
on each other to carry each others' traffic, then that could potentially work;
if they didn't, and only banned charging the consumer, then that creates a
massive market advantage for the larger European carriers, who can charge the
smaller carriers with no way for those smaller carriers to recoup the charges
from their customers.

The article mentions that that "will require reform of the roaming wholesale
market on which national phone operators across Europe trade services between
each other.". I'm starting to think that the old joke about XML applies to
regulation as well: _____ is like violence, if it's not working, use more
until it does.

~~~
seszett
Both wholesale rates and retail rates have been regulated for a decade or so
now, so larger carriers can't charge smaller ones ludicrous rates.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Both wholesale rates and retail rates have been regulated for a decade or so
> now, so larger carriers can't charge smaller ones ludicrous rates.

If regulations force the retail rates to zero without forcing the wholesale
rates to zero, that's still a problem; either do both or do neither.

~~~
seszett
Well yes, obviously wholesale rates have always been capped lower than retail
rates. Now, I can't really find a precise account of what's going to happen in
2017, but I see no reason to think it will be different.

~~~
biehl
Here is a nice overview. Maybe slightly outdated by the latest developments,
but the concept of wholesale and retail rates is clear
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulations)

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nimbix
But be careful if you find yourself in Switzerland or Norway. It's easy to
forget that those two are not in the EU and that can easily end up costing you
a lot. I had a layover at the Zurich airport yesterday and I almost enabled
data roaming which I disabled as soon as I left for the US... it was a good
thing I checked the carrier text message letting me know that every MB of
transferred data will cost me almost 9 EUR!!!

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> those two are not in the EU

Norway and Iceland are in the EEA, and Switzerland has similar trade deals.
So, much EU law does apply to them. I don't know if the roaming law does.

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tormeh
It definitely does not apply to Switzerland.

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emmedema
This is in Italian, but Switzerland, Norway and Croatia are included.
[http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/impresa-e-
territori/2015-10-2...](http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/impresa-e-
territori/2015-10-27/definitivo-l-addio-
roaming-2017-150435.shtml?uuid=ACk5cEOB)

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PythonicAlpha
The newest news says, that the first big carrier is looking for legal ways to
get around this. So "abolish" might be a little to much promise.

The news behind the news is, that the EU parliamentarians likely did sacrifice
net-neutrality to get rid of the roaming charges (it is rumored, that many
feared that when the whole package was not voted for fast, the roaming charges
would also be dropped from agenda).

So, very possible, in the end we get nothing of it at all!

~~~
kuschku
Well, they didn’t sacrifice net neutrality. They created net neutrality, but
ISPs can still zero-rate some sites.

It’s intended to avoid the Netflix-Verizon issue, but it still allows for
unfair competition, although the ECJ already mentioned they would consider
that an antitrust violation.

So we might end up with a fair result.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
Some people, and also the inventor of the WWW, do not agree.

~~~
kuschku
Yes. Zero-Rating is bad.

But you can’t say they "banned" or gave a "heavy blow to" Net Neutrality.

They created a very limited law, that provides some of the protections of Net
Neutrality, but most importantly, it creates more competition between ISPs.

But, as most of the other protections of Net Neutrality are anti-monopoly
laws, the ECJ might end up ruling that, if one combines this law with
antitrust laws, these protections are implied.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
To which extend Net Neutrality was damaged, is debatable -- and likely we will
only see in the future what the net-result is. I can only see for now, that
they left dangerous holes in the Net Neutrality case here, which the providers
where longing for very much, because they want to use these holes to draw
money from it.

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jpollock
Watch out for carriers in low tax EU environments poaching subscribers and
then allowing them to roam. Particularly if there is any sort of discrepancy
between what the carrier pays to terminate a call elsewhere in Europe and what
they pay to receive a call.

~~~
peteretep

         > Watch out for carriers in low tax EU environments
         > poaching subscribers and then allowing them to roam
    

That sounds like an ideal situation, although as we've recently seen,
companies need to be very careful with:

    
    
        > low tax EU environments
    

as the EU has shown itself willing to declare these illegal state subsidies
retroactively.

~~~
tormeh
Those were special tax deals for special companies. It's perfectly legal to
just set a low tax rate, as long as it's universal.

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msh
Roaming charges in the eu have always been a way to legally rip off the
customers.

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noja
The new "fair" rate is 50 EUR per gig! 10 times the normal cost! It's still a
rip off.

~~~
de_Selby
Exactly. They aren't banning roaming charges, they are capping them at a rate
that is still a rip off.

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Newky
So from what I understand, this means that when I roam in the United Kingdom
on an Irish sim, I get no extra roaming charges, which is great.

Does anyone know if this has any effect on calls/texts to other countries?

~~~
paublyrne
This is already the case for some carriers, Vodafone (when Passport is
enabled) off the top of my head, and also Meteor. Has been the case for some
time.

There has been an issue with data though, and I'm not sure the new proposal
solves that. Also if you have a plan with minutes, they won't be included as
minutes while abroad, you'll be charged, but at a standard home rate.

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eitally
Hopefully this will peer-pressure US carriers to follow suit.

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dmishe
There are no roaming charges inside of US, are there?

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ghaff
There can be roaming charges and roaming data caps inside the US although
they're not very common with the major carriers. The only time I've
specifically encountered a cap with AT&T (I have a grandfathered "unlimited"
plan) was when I was in Furnace Creek in Death Valley. (For those not
familiar, Furnace Creek is quite isolated but it did get cell phone service a
few years back.)

As others have said, international roaming is very expensive without a
specific plan. I left early on a trip to Europe last winter because of a
snowstorm and before I knew it I had a big bill because I had used my phone in
Toronto airport and my roaming service wasn't scheduled to begin for a couple
of days. Fortunately, AT&T moved the start time for the international service
earlier for me.

~~~
Steko
AFAIK AT&T always lets you buy International plan add ons back to beginning of
the current bill cycle. Still a rip.

T-Mobile has 'free international data' but it's 2G speeds (capped at 128 kbps)
and the upsell is a rip, $50 for half a GB.

~~~
ghaff
AT&T's system for international add-ons on their site is a lot better than it
used to be when you had to explicitly cancel the plan over the phone when you
got back home.

I'm happy enough with their offerings. I suppose there are circumstances where
I'd just buy a SIM card for my old phone when I arrived at the airport, but
for most purposes I'm fine with paying $30 for 120MB or whatever it is. It's
no hassle and serves my purposes for a week of travel or so.

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pinaceae
right now some genious at ATT is calculating the business case for roaming
charges between US states. not like the US has anything like the EU commission
enforcing rules against corporations. oh man, the billions to be reaped. and
hey, how many really travel between states? and aren't most voters against the
federal government and for more state-level government? make some GOP doofus
to run with it, next step - profit!

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maxerickson
Roaming in the US only really went away sometime around 2000. I would say the
wireless carriers are competing pretty hard right now (what with all the
offers to pay $500 to get people off their old plan and huge LTE build outs).

