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Originally Posted by DRNewcomb
I think what will really lower EU's roaming rates is competition from UM, Hop etc. rather than goverment intervention.
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Are you sure?
Of course, international SIMs which we like so much are often price-competitive, in some cases even better to compare with local SIMs.
But how about convenience of usage? If you have a "regular" SIM (i.e the which you use in your home country) and you roam with it, you are available worldwide on your home number and all your expenses abroad are charged together on the single invoice
(I don't say that this convenience should cost so much anyway :unsure: ...).
Notice how many posts on the forum is about diverting incoming calls from the "regular" number to Riiing/UM? It shows (at least to me) that some important feature of "standard" roaming is missing what makes international SIMs less competitive.
We can consider further issues (like handset compatibility for example) but IMHO all this reduces to something what I'd name "price-convenience trade-off".
Think e.g. about calling card business. Why the hell do something like calling cards exist at all? The "regular" operator of the landline phone on your desk, the mobile phone in your pocket or the payphone right the corner could (at least theoretically) lower its rates to the level at which nobody would like to "play" calling cards
but things are diferrent - why?