

Ukko Mobile From Helsinki Eliminates Data Roaming - dsarle
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/03/27/one-sim-card-to-rule-them-all-ukko-mobile-from-helsinki-eliminates-data-roaming-forever

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vidarh
The problem with this, which I learned the hard way with my first startup, is
that roaming costs are not high because of some horrible inefficiency in the
telco's charging them, but because they all benefit from the status quo.

My first company was an ISP, and we thought the then current dial up prices
(1995) were insane, and quickly worked out we could offer packages at 25% of
the largest competitor and make a profit with only 1500 or so users. Problem
was, the largest competitors could _also_ make a profit at 25% of their then-
current prices, and had large established user-bases. We were inexperienced
enough in business to not worry too much about _why_ their prices were to high
- we assumed without thinking that their prices reflected their cost base.
Instead it reflected their belief about the market at a time - they'd rather
sell at that price with a ridiculous margin, than cut the price and grow the
total size of the market.

We went in cocky about a big competitive advantage, and it took about 3 days
after launch before the incumbent dropped prices to match ours, and while we
kept growing, it obviously made things a lot harder.

This company might find the same in the mobile data market if they get any
traction at all: Many of their competitors can drop the roaming charges
massive pretty much over-night, have large warchests, and have roaming
agreements in place that can quickly be re-negotiated if they and their
partners start seeing this startup as a threat to their revenues. The massive
benefit they can provide now, and the seeming headstart they have on their
competitors can evaporate pretty much overnight.

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hatu
Wait, you guys dropped the price of dialups for customers by 75% nation-wide
and you're still disappointed?

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Gravityloss
Yes, sounds like the free market worked great for the customer!

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dbuxton
I use Tru (formerly Truphone) which covers UK, US and Oz, I assume through the
sorts of deals that these guys have pulled off.

It's a fabulous idea but badly executed (despite the fact that they have
raised oodles of VC money) with poor call quality and slow (2G) data speeds.
Still, _so_ much easier than buying a SIM in the US. Also, has the wonderful
property that you can call someone who is physically in the US on their UK
mobile number for free for both parties - for which incoming call (for those
of you who don't know how backwards the US cell market is in comparison with
regulated Europe) a US cell customer would normally have to pay!

That said, if you mainly travel to the US and don't want to deal with T-Mobile
or Virgin or whoever, I heartily recommend them.

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smikolay
I've been playing with toggle (www.togglemobile.co.uk) as it covers more
countries than Tru. They use their parent's MVNO network (Lyca Mobile), and
actually manage decent prices in a number of European countries (and free
incoming calls in a number more around the world).

The data offering isn't as wide spread, and they currently only offer per MB
outside UK; but still a better deal than roaming.

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jtheory
This sounded very cool for a minute -- I'm mostly based in France, sometimes
the UK, but now I'm in Malaysia for a month, and will be in the US probably
later this year for a chunk of time.

...but the title was seriously misleading (just Europe, and not even
specifying which countries yet); I'm still going to have massive roaming
charges if I don't switch SIMs.

How hard is it to put "...eliminates European data roaming costs forever"?

My current solution is multiple SkypeIn numbers -- you can call me in the US
or UK, for example, and either number will forward to my current (local)
mobile number, which I don't give out.

The only serious flaw with this approach is SMS -- SkypeIn can't accept
(and/or forward SMS), even to my Skype account.

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dsarle
Good point about the title. But to answer your question, as far as I know Ukko
told me that they want to expand quickly to the US and also countries such as
Russia from the Eastern side.

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drpgq
Canada would be nice, although dealing with the Rogers/Bell/Telus troika might
be difficult.

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icebraining
Interesting, but their site seems light on details. Under Coverage, they just
have "throughout Europe", which doesn't tell much (Europe is a rather poorly-
defined concept).

In any case, 40+€ seems expensive unless you travel a lot.

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flexie
40-80 EUR is not that bad compared to many single country subscriptions in
Scandinavia. Depends on whether it includes data traffic, free talk etc. If
this works as advertised I believe it will be a game changer.

The EU maximum roaming charges[1] have to some extend compensated for the lack
of competition but this would be even better.

1:
[http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/t...](http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/tariffs/index_en.htm)

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taneliv
What? I pay 13€ / month for unlimited 15Mbps 3G in Finland, and kids have 5 €
/ month unlimited 0.5Mbps 3G. They all include some text and voice, and the
coverage is spotless for daily commute and holidays. Where do you consider 40
€ / month to be "not that bad" for similar connectivity?

OTOH, roaming fees while traveling can easily burn through several hundreds of
euros, making 40-80 € / month a good plan even if you travel only once a year
(but need data while traveling). Just the downloading the maps for navigating
from airport to hotel and checking your email may cost more than a hundred
euros (been there, done that).

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hatu
How does Amazon accomplish their free 3G with the Kindle and why aren't they
selling this service?
<http://client0.cellmaps.com/tabs.html#cellmaps_intl_tab>

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brazzy
> How does Amazon accomplish their free 3G with the Kindle and why aren't they
> selling this service?

It's not "free 3G", it's "free ebook shop browsing and delivery via 3G" -
relatively small files, and Amazon directly profits from each one. Thus they
can afford to pay for it, and they're big enough to negotiate reasonable
prices. But note that it's very limited: audio books are not delivered via 3G,
nor are files sent in by the user for conversion (actually I believe you can
pay for that service). And for their 70% royalty option, delivery is actually
charged to the author at 15 cents per MB: [http://andrewhy.de/amazons-markup-
of-digital-delivery-to-ind...](http://andrewhy.de/amazons-markup-of-digital-
delivery-to-indie-authors-is-129000/)

~~~
PanMan
Still, 15 cents is a price I would pay for data worldwide...

