Will this EU high court decision remove a lot of the need for an intl. SIM?
 

European court upholds EU's cap on mobile calls abroad

(AFP) – 11 hours ago

LUXEMBOURG — The EU's highest court on Tuesday upheld the European Commission's decision to impose price limits for cross-border mobile phone calls in the 27-nation bloc.

The EU Commission won agreement in 2007 to set price caps for such 'roaming' call charges for Europeans using their mobile phones outside of their home country.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg decided that the EU rules were "justified... to protect the proper functioning of the internal market."

The decision was agreed with a time limit, and is due to expire in 2012.

Four major phone operators -- Vodaphone, Telefonica O2, T-Mobile and Orange -- have been contesting the rule changes, hoping at least to prevent its extension.

According to the phone companies, the commission's decision violates the principle of subsidiarity, whereby some decisions are taken purely at national level.

The operators argue that market forces should be left to determine a fair price for using a mobile phone abroad.

Vodafone has also mentioned the possibility that the receivers of such mobile roaming calls might have to pick up the tab.

The European Court rejected the companies' complaints, deciding that "the ceilings for retail charges must be considered to be appropriate for the purpose of protecting consumers against high levels of charges."

In the absence of effective action on prices at the national level, the court ruled that an EU approach had been required.

EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding welcome the court's decision

"This judgement shoes the advantages of a common market for our citizens," she said.

I would think it has, especially for European travelers traveling within the EU. Or even anyone traveling within the EU. For example, when I was in UK and France last year, I just used my UK sim in France as well.

Yes, it already has. The EU roaming caps have already caused many companies that specialise in roaming products to shut shop. The caps are already in place, and will go down even lower next year. The high court decision only manifests what has already been a steady course of action over the last few years. EU roaming rates are already as low as they have ever been.

However, even though voice is becoming cheaper, let's not forget that roaming data is still expensive across Europe. With increasing smartphone and dongle useage, there is still a good market for a roaming SIM that can bring down the cost of prepaid data.

Also, let's not forget that the EU is not the only market. Specialist international SIM's may be little point to US visitors visiting a bunch of European countries (as seems to be common here on ppgsm), as they might as well just buy any national SIM from a European country. However for those who travel further afield, roaming rates across much of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America are still exceedingly expensive.

I travel a lot and I don't see a need for an callback sim today.
Prices are cheap in Europe and some carriers have good offers for USA/China.
It seems to be the end of global simcards based on callback.

It's not the end of the Callback sim card, first because african, middle east, aisa are still a udge market for this products, and globaly the world

The european market is still interesting for voice, and DATA, and specialy DATA

But it's true that we need to see this market globaly and not only by block, and as we said to the MVNO event to Barcelona, to also see the telecom market as one MVNO with Added value, like money transfert and mobile payment

It will be cheaper with local cards in Europe. International cards will be redundant.

I know your business plan calls for users to make use of their cell phone to tsfr money/pay bills. This somehow mite work in 3rd world countries - but everyone here has credit cards and bank accounts. And, even many 3rd world countries have ATM machines where we can get cash. And, most banks now make it possible to pay bills, wire money etc. online. Much of this can be done direct from your cell phone (need data connection like GPRS, EDGE, 3G).
I would like to know how your money tsfr. would benefit anyone here.
It would appear that your "pay by SIM" model is aimed at people who have just enough money to buy a cell phone, but not enough to maintain a bank account.

That said - your SIM card as simply an intl. roaming card WOULD seem to have some benefits for users here. The rates in much of the world are quite good.


...mike

Where would this leave travelers who also travel to the UK and Switzerland?

It's not the end for free roaming sims. It's more of a problem for sims like yackie. If you look at their incoming rates for europe they have to be on the same maximum than any other EU telecom company. thus a German user might as well use his german sim when traveling in europe.

On the other hand there is still a big market for international travellers that go outside the euo or are visiting the eu. No regular operator is offering free roaming in the USA, this makes the roaming sim still viable in this market.

The US (and Canadian) market is different in that we don't have Calling/Sending Party Pays, hence no way to have 'free incoming' like is possible elsewhere. We don't even have free incoming SMS! What's funny is that back in the late 1990s, there were talks about trying to switch the US mobile market to a CPP model but I guess it never happened.

I still think one of the best deals for travelling in Europe is one of the UK SIMs, maybe Vodafone, which has the Passport feature that gives great rates on not only travelling in the 27 EU member states but several other countries as well (usually places Vodafone has a presence). Even data with them isn't a real killer (they have a daily rate of one price up to 25 MB instead of a pure pay-per-use rate like others have) provided you use it wisely like sticking to mobile sites, no satellite view in Google Maps, completely exit apps when not using them, etc, even though it of course could be better.

I think data is what will kill off int'l SIMs though because most people don't want to be carrying & using 2 phones at once unless one is in a bag or something saved as a backup in case the primary one breaks or is lost. Data is the big demand now, not voice & text alone any-more. Data on those SIMs is simply too expensive compared to local SIMs and even in some cases (like what I mentioned above w/ Vodafone UK) roaming SIMs, plus the increment is often too high (I am not dumb enough to use an already expensive service & also charges in chunks of 100 KB).