EU may end all roaming charges

[NFH]

Originally Posted by ronwi

Another issue could be the ID laws in the various EU countries could be undercut by this. Right now, in Italy one needs to show a passport and tax ID to get a SIM. In Spain, one needs to show one's passport. There are probably other examples, and the trend seems to be towards more ID requirments.

Then you have the UK where you can buy a SIM card and never show any ID to anyone. One can buy a SIM in the UK an use it in Italy, but there are roaming charges so this is not a practical solution for an Italian who doesn't want to show ID to obtain a SIM. However, if anyone can buy a SIM in the UK and use it in Italy with no roaming charges at all, then Italy's ID system is undercut - just buy a UK SIM off of ebay, and you can use it in Italy with no roaming charges.

Most of the ID requirements were introduced in order to prevent anonymous use by criminals, particularly terrorists. If a terrorist wants to use a UK SIM card in Italy or Spain, he's not going to worry about roaming charges!

But apart from potential criminal use, these proposed changes should give the UK a competitive advantage over operators in many other European countries. The only impediment is the currency, as consumers in the Eurozone may find it unattractive to have to pay in sterling.

[ronwi]

Originally Posted by NFH

Most of the ID requirements were introduced in order to prevent anonymous use by criminals, particularly terrorists. If a terrorist wants to use a UK SIM card in Italy or Spain, he's not going to worry about roaming charges!

But apart from potential criminal use, these proposed changes should give the UK a competitive advantage over operators in many other European countries. The only impediment is the currency, as consumers in the Eurozone may find it unattractive to have to pay in sterling.

But, the UK operators might not want that business - it would likely not be an economic proposition for Tmobile UK for someone in Italy to buy a cheap UK Tmobile SIM and use it solely to make intra-Italy calls on Wind.

[andy]

Originally Posted by ronwi

Vodafone in Europe seems to be the closest to this - the various Vodafones in various European countries do seem to have the best roaming plans for Europe.

It depends on people's likely usage. The previous Passport option had a connection fee per call, which for a series of mainly short calls would add up quickly to more expensive than the Eurotariff, but worked out ok for a long family call in the evening.

Contract users now still have their home bundle available and pay a daily fee on the first use of the day. That seems reasonable to some of them, and perhaps they can't be convinced that it might be worth a look around if their use is fairly modest.

So for instance I've been with friends who have spent £60 for the last 3 weeks, OK for some but more than necessary for the less intense users, while I spent about £4 on a mixture of VoIP over WiFi and data and calls on a Toggle SIM, including that I could check all the daily and overall scores of the event, plus my emails, and some weather and news websites, for 3 pence of mobile data rather than 3 quid.

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Originally Posted by tux

Long time ago the EU proposed this: Telephone numbers in the European Union - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
But it's an awful proposal. Let's see what Neelie Kroes proposes in September

Ouch! This proposal is really awful, especially because it keeps most of the legacy crap like country codes!

A system similar to the US might be sufficient, albeit it would probably be very hard to introduce?

+3 (or +4) = EU (+appendages like Switzerland, Liechtenstein etc..., just like the US´s +1-system accomodates Canada, Puerto Rico, Bahamas etc...)
3 digits determine the area (aaa)
7 further digits are individual extensions (eeeeeeee)

This way all EU (+appendages) #s could look like this:
+3-aaa-eeeeeee

1000 areas of 10 million numbers each, altogether 10 billion #s.

There are roughly 500m people in the proposed area, so that would leave ~20 numbers per person. If that´s not enough I don´t know. Especially since many crazy people (like me) who currently hoard multiple numbers wouldn´t have to do just that anymore.

[tux]

I'd appreciate a similar proposal, but it would imply the change of ALL the existing telephone numbers.

[ChrisNeedsToKnow]

Originally Posted by tux

I'd appreciate a similar proposal, but it would imply the change of ALL the existing telephone numbers.

Yes - but once done everything would become so much easier.

Also it might bring some sense back into numbering plans:

I´m originally from a town of 350.000 people (Bonn/Germany). When I learned what a phone is, numbers had 6 digits. That´s ~3 #s per individual.

Later this was increased to 7 digits. Granted - faxes and offices... Maybe 3 #s per person is a little tight, but 30 per person must be enough...

Nopes - new numbers were issued and now have 8 digits. That´s 100m #s (which could nearly accomodate all of China), or ~300 #s per individual. That´s just plain stoopid/unnecessary, or I´m getting above basic maths totally incorrect.

[wco81]

OK, so this new rule passed another milestone and is definitely slated to take effect in July 2014.

By the end of this month, they will outline the specific implementation rules, so we should have a clear idea of what we should and shouldn't be able to do next year.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar.../roaming-charges-die

[wco81]

Actually, there are two different things.

They do have existing laws to decrease roaming charges every year.

But the EU commissioner wants to eliminate them entirely, which would be a big change, to set up one mobile market across the EU. The politicians like the idea but the mobile industry may not necessarily like it.

This more radical proposal may or may not pass into law. The industry may lobby heavily against it.

Then there could be all kinds of unintended consequences.

The carriers make a lot of money on roaming fees. If they're abolished, their response may be to raise fees for other services.

Here's a better overview:



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[wco81]

So here are the prospects for EU commissioner Kroes' proposal to drop all roaming.

Bets on Europe Ending Data-Roaming Charges Exaggerated - Bloomberg

Industry is against it but they've been against the price caps on roaming charges that the EU has been imposing for years.

Kroes rationale is that the EU wireless market should be more like the US, where there Americans can use data throughout the country without roaming charges, whereas a UK citizen visiting nearby France would be subject to high roaming data and voice charges.

EU is behind US and Asia in 4G deployments, partially due to price competition from too many carriers. Of course, on the other hand, US carriers charge higher prices for inferior coverage.

The legislation has several milestones coming up including in September when the other EU commissioners would have to support it, then to the countries and then there could be votes ahead of elections next May (for the EU parliament?).

[Motel75]

I'm of two minds over this - while it's great that the ridiculous roaming charges for calls and data are being reduced, nothing in life is free. In fact, I think the price cap for SMS is already too low. The EU is not a comparable market to the US, because these caps apply to all carriers, including competitors. If price caps were eliminated, that would force unrelated carriers in other countries to carry calls/data at the originating carrier's domestic rate. This would especially affect carriers in countries that draw a lot of visitors. Something would have to pay for this.