What is situation when roaming from one EU country to another (and UK)?

[snidely]

I haven't really kept up. It has appeared that in the last few years the "authorities" had made carriers greatly reduce roaming costs.
I would assume, at some point, roaming charges would be eliminated.
Anyway, is there any reason for someone from Italy to have an intl. SIM if he is just traveling to France and Germany?
Will roaming eventually be eliminated within the EU and, maybe, the UK?

When cellular first came into being in the U.S. - you would pay 45 cents/min (daytime) and pay up to $2/day when you connected to a non-local carrier plus $1/min or more.

You would pay roaming just to use your Boston cell in NYC (200 miles) or your San Francisco cell in LA (400 miles). Of course you paid long distance when calling outside your local area. (Can't remember rates.)

Now (the last several years), there are no roaming charges to use your phone anywhere within the U.S. no LD charges to call any U.S. number. Unlimited voice calling (in and out) is $50-$60/mo. (5G of data will add $25 or $30). Of course, in the U.S. there is no premium charged to call a cell.
You can call Canadian numbers for free making use of Google Voice - but roaming in Canada is expensive.

My Point - Wouldn't it be logical that the entity known as the EU, at some point, disallow the charging for roaming among member countries? In the U.S. almost all the independent carriers have merged into the 4 or 5 big ones. (The U.S. government is slowly eliminating competition by allowing the big carriers to merge. (4 years ago, ATT/Cingular, later this year, ATT/T-Mobile.) The few small carriers left all have roaming agreements w. all the others, big and small.

Bottom line - Won't the market for intl. cards be greatly diminished in he near future?

...mike

[tux]

UK is part of the EU, so you should say "Switzerland" instead of "UK"

Anyway, in 2014 you can choose your roaming partner (e.g.: T-Mobile, Orange, O2/Telefònica, Vodafone, etc.) regardless of your carrier (if it isn't convenient to you) and hopefully in 2015 you'll be able to receive calls without paying anything... at the moment, carriers in the european market do not want to offer cheap tariffs when you're abroad (also big groups like Vodafone try to profit even if you're on one of their networks - 3 is the only group which allows you to use your offers abroad when you're on their networks (except 3 UK customers) and Meteor IE doesn't charge you incoming calls within EU).

EU has imposed lower tariffs abroad year by year, but many carriers apply the maximum allowed by their regulation.
There's no carrier who wants to compete on the abroad tariffs...

[Bossman]

I would think so, since the roaming rates charged within EU countries is less than most international sim cards. You are correct, the market for international sims, especially for EU customers has greatly diminished. I guess that's why most of them are focusing and marketing towards US customers, by providing dual number sims that have a US number.

Originally Posted by snidely

It has appeared that in the last few years the "authorities" had made carriers greatly reduce roaming costs.

Anyway, is there any reason for someone from Italy to have an intl. SIM if he is just traveling to France and Germany?
Will roaming eventually be eliminated within the EU and, maybe, the UK?


Bottom line - Won't the market for intl. cards be greatly diminished in he near future?

...mike

[DRNewcomb]

It was only a few years ago that the old AT&T introduced their nationwide, no-roaming tariff. That really changed the wireless market in the US. I recall the big deal with Omnipoint in the mid-'90s was that they only charged US$0.50/min for roaming on other US GSM carriers. One would think that market forces would compel European carriers to follow suite.

[bbob]

In the USA you pay for incoming calls in europe the caller pays a higher price to call a mobile.

Big carriers like t-mobile, vodafone might offer special packages for roaming and low rates but others need to find roaming partners and prices will be higher.

There is a maximum roaming rate the eu forces but you still pay.

In the end it's all about the money and roaming is big business and dataroaming is even a much bigger business now that many people use their android or iphone. You might be paying hundreds of euro's using data outside your home country.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by bbob

In the end it's all about the money and roaming is big business and dataroaming is even a much bigger business now that many people use their android or iphone. You might be paying hundreds of euro's using data outside your home country.

The situation was the similar in the US until a few years ago. In the early '90s, if I left my home county I'd be roaming. The home regions got bigger and bigger until most plans became nationwide, even if you are roaming another carrier. For a time, there were even plans that included Canada. (Not sure if they are still available or not.) While EU is not (yet) a single nation, with a single (for the most part) currency and no border formalities, I suspect what is really needed is consumer demand and one carrier who's a little braver than the pack.

[tux]

In Europe we have higher tariffs to mobile phones because of interconnection fees (not sure if it's translated correctly...).

[MATHA531]

Aren't there caps on voice calls for receiving and making calls within the eu? And I do remember the lady head of the communications for the eu saying it was the goal that by 2015, roaming charges wold be removed altogether similar to the USA.

Of course when I travel within the eu, I always have questons about Norway and Switzerland and whether the tariff caps apply to them......

[Telekom]

The EU has mandated lower voice roaming. However, if I'm not mistaken data used outside the home country are very often egregious.

[dg7feq]

I think the big difference between EU and USA is that in the USA you have nearly full coverage with one single provider, while in EU if you travel from east to west your phone will pick a dozend or more different independent providers. Of course the big players are available in many countries and also already offer reduced roaming rates or even include roaming minutes in their bigger packages (e.g. in our corporate T-Mobile tariff 1200 minutes of EU roaming are included every month free of extra charge).

Chris