
EU Telecoms deal: Mobile roaming charges ban in 2017 - endijs
http://www.politico.eu/article/telecoms-single-market-connected-continent-deal-reached/
======
doque
Relevant Part:

    
    
       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.

~~~
contingencies
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.

~~~
CaptainZapp
You're aware that data roaming in Asia (Thailand, for example) can hit you
with 20$ _per MB_ and no. That's not a spelling error.

~~~
de_Selby
The fact the roaming in other countries is more expensive doesn't make it any
cheaper

~~~
masklinn
The point is that international roaming is generally expensive right now, the
EU is now mandating a transitioning plan to free roaming with an intermediate
rate cap which is most likely an improvement over existing EEA rates (my ISP's
lowest EEA rate at the moment is 0.06€/MB)

------
CraigRood
What should be mentioned is the single market where using a SIM card from
another EU country could turn out cheaper than using a domestic one.

~~~
maccard
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.

[1] [http://www.three.co.uk/](http://www.three.co.uk/)
[http://www.three.ie/](http://www.three.ie/) [2]
[http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-
only/](http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-only/)

~~~
wrboyce
The contract you mention is also available on a 30 day contract at £20/month.
I picked one up this week for my upcoming trip to the states.

~~~
iaskwhy
Good luck when you decide to cancel it though, Three is a pain in the ass to
leave with their hour-long questionnaire and legalese. I really liked their
service but it was so annoying to leave I don't think I'll ever use them
again. I'm a giffgaff-ian, by the way.

~~~
flurdy
Ive been with giffgaff for a few years now and recruited family and friends to
it as well. £10 pm with practically free calls it has been great. But with
giffgaff's odd venture into payday loans as well it does not seem like a
community driven company any more, hence why I might move to Three's PAYG (as
I hate commiting to subscriptions)
[https://www.giffgaff.com/money/loans](https://www.giffgaff.com/money/loans)

~~~
Symbiote
I'm not sure how much community drive there ever was. GiffGaff is a subsidiary
of O₂, with some clever marketing.

O₂ would far rather 'lose' customers to Giffgaff than any other budget MVNO.

~~~
iaskwhy
Interesting, I didn't know giffgaff was actually directly related to O2
besided using their network. Out of curiosity, I tried to find some
information on Three and got a little surprise: "In January 2015, Li Ka-shing
entered into talks with Telefónica to buy its British mobile division O2 for
around $15.4 billion. In March 2015, Li Ka-shing confirmed it will be
purchasing Telefónica's UK mobile division for £10.25bn subject to regulatory
approval by competition regulator, Ofcom." So it seems Three is going to own
both O2 and giffgaff by buying Telefónica?

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_Whampoa#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_Whampoa#History)

------
lmb
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?

0: [http://www.slideshare.net/Computaris/eu-roaming-
regulations](http://www.slideshare.net/Computaris/eu-roaming-regulations)

~~~
kawsper
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.

~~~
sorenbs
Also a dane living in London using 3. It works great. Only downside is calling
UK numbers at billed as if I was calling from Denmark.

~~~
Symbiote
Did 3 work well in Denmark?

I'm emigrating in August, and my experience with Three.co.uk in London was
terrible (congested network, impossible to load a map or email when I most
needed it).

~~~
kawsper
3 works great in Copenhagen and other bigger cities, I have had no issues at
all, but I think it depends on where you ware going to stay.

I had issues in Varde (close to Esbjerg) a few years ago, where the connection
was bad, but that might have been fixed.

They have a map here:
[http://80.251.200.40/coverageportal_dk](http://80.251.200.40/coverageportal_dk)
(sorry the shady link, that is what they provide)

------
benguild
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.

~~~
JohnDoe365
The downside is that a majority will have to pay higher overall fees for the
benefit of a minority (those travelling regularly aboard)

Rather unfair.

~~~
solomatov
>The downside is that a majority will have to pay higher overall fees for the
benefit of a minority (those travelling regularly aboard)

I am 99% sure that for most of the phone companies a call in a home country
and outside of it costs the same. Especially, for companies with subsidiaries
all over the world such as vodafone and tmobile

------
Yetanfou
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.

------
acrooks
(Crosspost from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803815))

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
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.

------
anonu
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..

------
anovikov
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.

------
legulere
And for this we gave net neutrality legislation away.

~~~
edent
If you read the factsheet -
[http://europa.eu/!hB73fv](http://europa.eu/!hB73fv) \- it has reasonably
strong NN protection.

~~~
makeitsuckless
BS. There's no "reasonably strong" Net Neutrality, just like there isn't "a
little bit pregnant".

This is not net neutrality, this is a sham. It's full of deliberate vagaries
and loopholes, and is specifically designed to kill the real net neutrality as
it exists in my country, the Netherlands.

The new telecom law is specifically anti-Net Neutrality, designed to stop any
more member states from adopting it, and overrule those that already have.

The Netherlands will vote against (government already announced that), but it
won't matter. We'll be overruled. Once again we'll lose yet another bit of
freedom to the corrupt EU.

------
TeeWEE
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.

~~~
bbrazil
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.

~~~
TeeWEE
I think the main problem is that the prices telecom providers have to pay for
roaming data will be higher, than the selling price to customers, resulting in
losses for telecom providers. The only way to counter that is increasing
domestic prices.

Brussels makes rules, but doesnt understand the market and industry.

~~~
rsynnott
> I think the main problem is that the prices telecom providers have to pay
> for roaming data will be higher, than the selling price to customers

Most of the telecoms won't be paying at all, except as an independent
exercise; they're nearly all owned by one of about five companies (or else are
MVNOs who are already accustomed to paying for data etc for their customers).

