back to article EU operators PLEAD for MERCY, may get roaming rates cut ‘reprieve’

Policymakers are set to propose “no change” in wholesale telecoms roaming rates in the EU as part of a review of the system in 2016, according to a report. The Financial Times said it had seen a draft proposal from the Italian presidency of the European Council which indicated “long-fought proposals on roaming and spectrum …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Oh crap, here we go.

    "there could be a loophole that allows only a ‘fair use’ allowance for customers "

    So somewhere between 10 minutes and 100,000 then?

    Why not just set in stone and say euro-plan must match x% of home plan and have done with it.

    1. CmdrX3

      Re: Oh crap, here we go.

      10 minutes.... It's mobile operators we're talking about here, don't you think 10 minutes is a little over optimistic for their bottom end of fair use. I would have guessed they preferred anywhere between 1 minute and 10 minutes.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh crap, here we go.

      MInutes are cheap and it is something which you are in control of so you know how much you are spending.

      It is data which they want to continue charging as they do now. I have a vodafone Eu whatever that is advertised as unlimited and they have consistently charged me every time I go over something in the 10MB a day range. All it takes is for some dolt to send a powerpoint a couple of times and voila, you now have a bill on top of the famed 3£ per day.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Oh crap, here we go.

        @ AC re Vodafone EU

        You're not on PAYG or something are you, or am I missing something? I have a 5GB allowance on my UK SIM only voda contract, pay the £3 a day and it just takes from my allowance for calls/data. It usually gets close to the limit by the end of the month entirely on roaming , and I haven't been charged any extra - although granted I've only had it for 4 months, so they still have time.

        I used Three before, a fiver a day roaming in europe on an 'unlimited' UK contract, and that never caused any problems either payment wise, and was also staggeringly cheap at £15 a month (a tenner pm for the first year with cashback from quidco). The most I clocked on that was 12GB in a month roaming, and I occasionally used more than a gig a day. But coverage was patchy in some of the places I go. I still keep the account on for the UK, and for Australia every couple of months; service is good, and their 'feel at home' freebie means no charges at all to use effectively what I want - the nominal limit is something like 25 gig.

        I don't really understand how the disparity still exists between what I've paid with these thus far and the eye watering bills some seem to recieve. The networks can do 'reasonable' at a push already, and I'm surprised there's not more competition since it will obviously be a selling point for some. But the quoted charges and allowances for data with most operators are simply staggering, and if that was all that was on offer I'd be back to SMS.

      2. (AMPC) Anonymous and mostly paranoid coward
        Go

        Re: Oh crap, here we go.

        There will never be a proper use of mobile communications in Europe until travelers can finally stop checking their watches while phoning. The EU is making steps in the right direction, but until roaming charges are scrapped and flat rates are the norm, mobile customers will continue to be gouged at every opportunity.

        In many ways, European mobile service resembles 19th century America with its special tolls, traps and fees waiting at every state and territorial crossing. Surely we can learn from history? It is the 21st century after all.

    3. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Re: Oh crap, here we go.

      Surly if it is a fair use policy you will not be told the why or how?

  2. Russell Hancock

    Surely for the bigger providers (i.e. vodafone) this should be a non-issue as they already have networks in most countries so they are only paying themselves...

    Oh, wait, this is about being able to charge 10x as much for the same services.

    This has given me a new idea for the networks - Segregate the UK into parts and then roam from part to part - i.e. London, South East, South, etc - that way they can say it will only affect a small number of users because most people stay in their "local" area... Kerching..

    1. Tom 35

      Already in Canada

      "Segregate the UK into parts and then roam from part to part"

      We already have that in Canada. No need to go the the US to pay roaming...

      and phones configured by default to roam to a US tower is the signal is stronger then the Canadian tower so you can pay 10x as much without have to go through the bother of going through customs.

      Your EU operators need to talk to the true masters in Canada.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "Oh, wait, this is about being able to charge 10x as much for the same services."

      Networks that cost billions to install, maintain and upgrade. That investment did not come from nowhere, it was profit driven. Profits that ate supporting your pension and driving the economy, thus giving you a job.

      Maybe you would love to live in communist EU-istan, but not everyone is so idiotic and will to ruin their own future.

      1. Russell Hancock

        @Coward

        I take it you work for a network provider...

        Do you pay more to download a web page from another server in another country? No, oh no, the world will end with "EU-istan" taking over... how about from Australia? no, what, that can't be right...

        At the end of the day most phone calls are back hauled over the "Internet" (private or public) between cell towers so it makes NO difference what country that second tower is in. The network knows the start and end point (or how does it route the call properly?) so it is not rocket science - it's software development and i happen to know quite a bit about that.

        Guess what, people use skype, whatsapp, etc etc - they do the exact same thing so why can't the network providers? well, because they want to make as much money as possible because the gov charged them as much as it could to have the spectrum... we already pay through the nose whichever way...

        going to take some medication and lie down now as i am starting to rant...

        1. Terry Barnes

          Re: @Coward

          "At the end of the day most phone calls are back hauled over the "Internet" (private or public) between cell towers so it makes NO difference what country that second tower is in. "

          Actually it does. Most cellular operators don't have much in the way of international capacity. If a call leaves their network, someone has to be paid. Similarly a UK call plan will have costs based on the termination fees charged by BT Wholesale - give or take - if the regime in another country has a different termination model, those plans don't add up.

          I'm sure this is all detail that can be worked out, but pretending that this is in some way 'free' to the operators because of the existence of Skype is a nonsense.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @Coward

          "Do you pay more to download a web page from another server in another country?"

          No, because the anti-innovation communists hold sway in the People's Republic of Europe (EU). These communist terrorist ate currently attacking the USA with their "one size fits all" agenda and the hard-working American is once again going to have to suffer.

          Companies have costs. Global costs are greater and the fascists want YOU to pay for the benefit of others.

          Screw you for working hard and not depending on state benefits; right?

          Single pricing is a command economy; your future is in peril.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Coward

            These communist terrorist ate currently attacking the USA with their "one size fits all" agenda and the hard-working American is once again going to have to suffer.

            Its not europe that are reaming out your 'hard-working' (hardly unique to you) merkins, or even that doubtless commie inspired devilry Obamacare. The ones really sticking it to you where the sun don't shine are your own comfy little class of kleptomaniac Oligarchs who pretty much have a monoply on dictating policy and wages, and have resolutely ensured that the fruits of 'hard work' accrue to them and definitely not to those to whom it is most likely to apply. Which in manufacturing these days is more likely to be actually commie, hard working Chinese than god fearin' USAsians. Rather did that to yourselves, didn't you, without lubrication?

            If anyone's pissed their future up the wall its Americans, who bleat about 'democracy' so often, yet who would rather live in apple-pie themed cloud cuckoo land than recognise that any meaningful democracy took a long walk from their own shores more than a century ago.

      2. Captain DaFt

        "Profits that ate supporting your pension and driving the economy"

        Pardon me, Freud, your slip is showing. :)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Sorry, my mobile keyboard use is showing. Just like yor communist agenda.

      3. Terry Barnes

        "Networks that cost billions to install, maintain and upgrade. That investment did not come from nowhere, it was profit driven. Profits that ate supporting your pension and driving the economy, thus giving you a job."

        You spent all that money without doing a proper risk analysis and offset on potential regulatory changes? That sounds like a failure of due diligence to me.

        It's not in any way communist to regulate markets, especially ones with a small number of large players and gigantic barriers to entry. The market hasn't delivered effective competition in roaming and so regulation is required to correct the error.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "It's not in any way communist to regulate markets, especially ones with a small number of large players"

          A co.mand economy (communist) IS market control. As for the "small number", there are in fact hundreds trying to compete in the move sector but are prevented by Stalinist EU.

        2. Russell Hancock

          @Terry Barnes

          A couple of good points there and i *think* we are generally of the same opinion but disagree on a couple of finer points...

          While most (some, none?) of the networks don't have international connections what i am saying is that this is easy to fix - that is how the Internet works - bi directional traffic agreements.

          If it was not for the "limits" on market entry (spectrum licenses) i am sure we would have already see more international calling... The point i was trying to make all along is that the reasons for maintaining high roaming charges are "fictional" - it is technically possible to do it, it is done in other markets, so why is it so hard for phone companies - the answer to that is "we don't want to and we don't have to"...

          1. ratfox

            Re: @Terry Barnes

            Warning: I think half the AC in this thread are trolling… Well, that or parodying a merkin republican. Hard to tell sometimes.

            That said, fuck the telcos.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @Terry Barnes

              >>Well, that or parodying a merkin republican

              Can that even be done?? I always assumed they had an automated self-parody mode just so they beat you to it.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Profits that ate supporting your pension and driving the economy, thus giving you a job.

        Whoa - a whiff of the foam-flecked lips of the commie fearing merkin in there! Try looking up some of the cosy little deals the operators in the UK do so that what they're really paying for is propping up the economy in the Cayman Islands. I doubt you'll many tugging their forelocks in gratitude to the networks for their benevolence.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Cayman? Who cares? U work hard, I make money, I but shares (and have a pension). High profits means high shares and good for all hard workers.

          Just because you are a lazy socialist and want to benefit from the hard graft of others is no real argument.

          Take your privileged position and shove it. Work or shut up.

    3. jonathanb Silver badge

      Well not necessarily. If you take your Vodafone to Germany, it won't necessarily roam on the Vodafone Deutschland network. It will roam on whatever signal it finds first, which might be O2 or T-Mobile. Apparently Vodafone are not allowed to offer more favourable rates for roaming on their own network, so there is a problem there.

      The EU could make roaming rates the same as what they charge their own retail customers, or the same as what they charge MVNOs in their own country to access their network. That would seem fair to me.

      1. Russell Hancock

        @jonathanb

        I did not know that about Vodafone not being able to offer favourable rates to other "vodafone" group subscribers. That is a bit daft, any company should be able to charge any other company what they want (unless they are a monopoly) so it should be up to companies to do deals - Three have a roaming deal that gives you the same in other countries - why can't they all do that?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @jonathanb

          "That is a bit daft, any company should be able to charge any other company what they want (unless they are a monopoly) so it should be up to companies to do deals"

          The test is 'significant market power' or SMP. Actual monopolies are rare - but companies with a large market share in a business that is hard to enter have the power to put rival out of business or keep costs to consumers high. Regulators act to prevent those market harms.

          Almost half of UK homes are passed by Virgin's network and BT has less than 50% of the phone market, but I doubt it would be a good idea to free them from regulation.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @jonathanb

            Spoken Luke a true Socialist. Tell me, how happy are you to give up 50% or mire of your wage to the lazy?

            In a competitive market (that thing the EU abhors) the only reason a monopoly exists is because no company has the balls to compete.

            Because such behaviour removes MEP control, they must find rises to deter freedom to compete and freedom to innovate. And you idiots love to suck on that.

            Enjoy Communuism via the backdoor. Don't forget to tell Putin you like it hard with no lube.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Segregate the UK into parts and then roam from part to part - i.e. London, South East, South, etc

      They do this in India between states. It can get pretty ugly if you live close to a border where your state butts up to two others.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hate to stick up for mobile operators, but...

    Unless an operator has its own network in every EU country then it will incur roaming costs in transferring international calls from one EU network to another. Even if it does have a network in each country, roaming still involves far more complex signalling and routing (and hence cost) than does a call within a home network. Certainly roaming costs have in the past been obscenely high, but to pretend that they are zero is nonsensical. The end result will just be that intra-EU roaming calls are subsidised by those subscribers who only make national calls.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I hate to stick up for mobile operators, but...

      As the cost of data for phone call is approaching zero, the network switching costs are similarly low. This is just another try to gouge the customer. I can call internationally over a networked ipad for minimal cost, so a phone network call should be in the same region, Skype anyone?

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Thumb Down

      Re: I hate to stick up for mobile operators, but...

      For voice you're wrong which is why the package has already been agreed to. We already don't pay anything like the real cost of making a call which is why a comparison based on costs is fundamentally flawed.

      Roaming always involved charging the user for imaginary costs and splitting the profit between the user's network and the network where they were roaming. In a regulated market this might have been covered by termination fees based on actual costs but there were obvious reasons why the networks would never agree to that.

  4. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Data only?

    My provider (E-Plus in Germany) has already got rid of roaming charges for incoming calls when I travel and the rest of the prices are largely in line with what I pay here. If the wholesale caps are inplace than I can't see anyone surviving the competition if they maintain roaming charges as we will be able to pick and choose our roaming partners.

    I can see some leeway for data, which remains very expensive when abroad, as it doesn't scale the same way: as hard as we try we can't really hold multiple conversations at once so capacity is easier to plan for. Much more difficult to cater for the same users as they move from SMS to IM to VoIP to streaming video.

    1. Tom 35

      Re: Data only?

      No, data just needs to be dumped onto the local internet. The home operator don't need to touch the data at all, the only cost for them is billing. A roaming user should not be charged any more then a local user. Charging some one hundreds of dollars because their weather app and email downloaded a few megabytes is just robbery.

      1. Adrian Harvey
        Boffin

        Re: Data only?

        That's how it ought to work, but the people designing the cellular protocols designed for a lot more cases than just simple undifferentiated Internet data. That's why there's that APN setting in your phone.

        And these things really are used. For example my previous employer had a set of in-truck delivery operator terminals which had a private network back to a router in a special section of our DMZ. I know, a similar effect could've been achieved with an IP sec tunnel over an Internet connection but that's not how this solution was designed to work and of course would've exposed the terminals to a greater range of threats.

        There's probably a good technical workaround for this somewhere - like a standard APN that provides access across all networks - I'm just trying to say that the design as it is means that it's not totally simple.

      2. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Data only?

        No, data just needs to be dumped onto the local internet.

        Sure, the difference is in the load carried by the cells. A football stadium of people chatting uses essentially the same kind of resources today as it did in the middle of the 1990s. A bit different when you think about the differences in the use of data from 9600 baud to 50 Mb/s.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good

    The communist ideals of the EU need a good kicking like this. Private industry will solve the problem itself when there is the demand, and still retain the ability to create new and innovative products customers need.

    Forcing this "one price fsit all" Stalinist diktat through will cost jobs and ruin consumer choice.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Good

      Thanks for the laugh of the day.

    2. jonathanb Silver badge

      Re: Good

      It doesn't work like that, and here's why.

      If I own a mobile network in the UK, there is no benefit to me from reducing the roaming fees I charge other network operators, because it doesn't benefit my customers, only the profit of these other operators.

      If I was allowed to sign bilateral agreements with operators in other countries where both reduced the roaming charges between each others' networks, and passed the savings on to the customers, that would work, but it is illegal under current EU price-fixing laws.

      1. Adrian 4

        Re: Good

        Unless, of course, you failed to make any roaming fees because you were too expensive, and the other operators went to your competitors.

        Why wouldn't that happen ? Perhaps because the operators had a gentleman's agreement not to compete ?

        Except Gentlemen wouldn't have such an agreement. Only criminals.

        1. jonathanb Silver badge

          Re: Good

          But that's the point I'm trying to make. The operators don't get to choose which networks to roam on.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Good

        Customers? You mean "shareholders" you idiot. Typical commie - think those who benefit are the same ad those who take the risks.

        No wonder you love Putin sausage.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Good

      Funny you should use "Stalinist" since you seem to be reciting an out of date fundamentalist script yourself.

    4. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Good

      Fuck off you UKIP numpty!

      The Commission only got involved in roaming charges because the case was made that operators were hindering the free market through price-fixing that wasn't covered by the terms of the national licences.

  6. James 100

    "Surely for the bigger providers (i.e. vodafone) this should be a non-issue as they already have networks in most countries so they are only paying themselves..."

    That would be one problem with this plan: it screws smaller operators who don't have a heft pan-European footprint.

    Some comments point out the *cost* of a call now is trivial. In a way, that's right - the problem is, the *price* of that call - even for one telco charging another - is not.

    Supposing I had a UK mobile network. I charge a flat 2p/min for calls. (As, in fact, my current provider does.) If you roam to France, Orange charge me 10p/min; go to some small island, maybe I get charged £1/min because there's only one operator there. Now the EU demands that all of those be the same price to customers - do I charge everyone £1/min so I'm not getting ripped off any time someone visits the island? 3p/min to everyone, so UK customers have to subsidise tourists and make that island's monopoly rich?

    That's the problem with the "one price" proposal: there is no single fair price to customers, when the goods in question differ in wholesale price widely! If they were to regular wholesale roaming charges, then cap the retail roaming price based on that, it would be fairer all round. Yes, calls in Croatia would cost me more than they do at home - that's because the service in question actually costs more to provide! (Of course, Three have managed to iron out the difference, for *some* countries; hopefully that will continue and spread - but it certainly isn't universal, and perhaps never will be.)

    1. Russell Hancock

      Hi James,

      Some good points but i guess the problem is that they are trying to push a "EU wide free market" from one side (cap roaming costs, termination costs, etc) and then restricting it on the other hand (spectrum licenses, no favourable rates, etc). That is the problem... if the cost of entry was "buy a cell tower (pico, micro, whatever) and provide back haul" you would see a lot more people entering the market and with all different business models...

      I know I can provide some services cheaper than competitors but i am more expensive for others - different business models, different costs, etc this would be the same in phone markets *IF* they changed the spectrum licensing model - i.e. you pay per sq ft of coverage (i.e. no one owns all of the spectrum in one band) but this would need a new standard as i do not think that current software / hardware would support this...

  7. msknight

    What I'd like to do...

    What I'd like to do is walk in to a phone shop here, and be able to buy a PAYG SIM for whatever European country I'm visiting.

    Seriously. I can buy a DVD, book, computer, from any other European country and use it here.Why the hell can't I, as UK citizen, buy a SIM for use on a German network (which is where I'm going in a few weeks) with the same kind of package that a German citizen would buy, and use it?

    This whole damn thing is just the telecoms corporates being able to stitch up the customers, IMHO.

    ESPECIALLY - as the operators in Europe are the same damn operators that are running services here. Vodaphone, etc. with the exception of national carriers, of course. There is really no excuse for their roaming charges bull shit.

    1. dotdavid

      Re: What I'd like to do...

      "Why the hell can't I, as UK citizen, buy a SIM for use on a German network (which is where I'm going in a few weeks) with the same kind of package that a German citizen would buy, and use it?"

      Huh? I don't know about you but I've bought local PAYG SIMs in several EU countries and not had any problems. Just go to a phone shop or supermarket.

      http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/Germany has some info about German plans.

      1. msknight

        Re: What I'd like to do...

        Thanks. Looks like I'll have to do that. I was hoping to have a data connection from arrival so that I could use sat-nav, but apparently not! As long as they aren't asking for a home address then I should be OK.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What I'd like to do...

          If you want to use largeish amounts of data beyond a few MB and by any chance you're on a UK Vodafone or Three contract with a passable allowance, you'll probably be better off to use their EU roaming packages (Voda "Eurotraveller" or Three "Euro Internet Pass") priced at £3 or £5 per day respectively which allow you to use your UK allowances in Europe. Vodafone is the better for coverage, but Three usually works fine in most places. Mobile data in Germany is pretty scandalously pricey compared to the UK, or at least allowances are small, and a UK contract works out way cheaper for me for regular use (approx 4GB per month), even with the day charge.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lets wait and see on Raoming

    Well firstly it does not surprise me that fair use has been mentioned . However, it is in everyone's interest to clear this and there has been instances lately of people buying allowance for Europe and getting bills because of fair allowance usage.Its even worse in other parts of the world. Needs clarification once and for all. Until then I think I will stick with my International Sim and Data cards from Go Sim or Telestial.

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