EUROPEAN PURGE on hated mobile roaming charges

It's possible to discriminate against foreigners, for example, by requiring presentation of a type of national ID that they can't easily get.

Not come across that anywhere and I can't imagine it surviving a challenge.

Existing rules already make unbundling when roaming possible. So there should soon be third parties offering deals to the minority who have "above average" requirements: single telephone number but calls and data can be handled by other partners when travelling.

The telco's are eking out charges as long as possible but the increasing ubiquity (I'm not sure if that's an oxymoron) of wireless when travelling is really eating into their margins. Worth noting that this generally affects the operators in holiday countries more than the travellers.

They can require a credit check before sales. The credit check agency of course identifies people by the national social security number only, which automatically excludes foreigners.

(This is hiw scandinavia does it)

Re: How may I count the ways....

True, but your £s will be worth a whole lot of drachmas.

Re: Still not cheap

Very competitive for PAYG though, it's several times cheaper.

Which means telcos will enforce a residency test for PAYG so you can't just get a SIM the next time you're on holiday and take it back home.

Hurray for the law of unintended consequences.

Perhaps the EU should have said roaming charges should be no more than x% of home charges, but they were never really bothered about the practical effects their laws have on day-to-day life (see Greece etc).