Ermm shouldn't that have been
"what member pigopolists do with their digital dividend"?
EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding put the frighteners on operators and national regulators today, by reiterating her July 1 deadline to cut data roaming rates and making a grab for the digital dividend. The GSMA reckons that the cost of data roaming in Europe has already dropped 25 per cent in the last six months, but …
After finding out how much those thieving bloodsuckers at VodaPhoney want for roaming data in Europe, £10 / MB, I now buy a PAYG SIM in each country I regularly visit for data access. I recently went for a week in another country on PAYG using it for both calls and data, including the SIM it cost me less than 1MB on VodaTheft.
There is no whiney "we have to pay £xx per MB because the nasty in country operator charge us too much" excuse either when it is VodaPhoney in each country. It is about time somebody took a very big stick to the cash machine that is mobile telecomms, the market has very clearly failed and we have what is, in effect, a price fixing cartel.
The fact she is getting tough on a rip off inductry is to be applauded but the EU should remain just a single market.
I have a problem with them trying to control our parliament and laws, someone should tell them to butt out of internal affairs in the same way that Russia would if we tried to tell them what to do (though for the record I am concerned about the return of the communists under a different name to Russia)
How much does it cost to transfer that 10MB to UK or any other country as it's Internet Data? Not much. There's no big difference between operational costs between different networks and countries also. I fully support her - we got enough of that Merkin b*llshit free markets. They don't work, they tend to create oligopolies that quickly transform into price fixing cartels. All in the name of profits for shareholders. No social responsibility or any responsibility actually.
Across the board on mobile data (not even the roaming sort), SMS and voice roaming, but most of all on inbound calls charged to other operators' customers (why should they moderate their gouging when regulators give them free rein?) and on international calls (there is absolutely no reason mobile operators should get a free pass from the competition requirements their landline cousins are required to abide by).
Mobile operators are not fledglings any more, regulators should have dropped the kid gloves a long time ago.