EU Telecoms deal: Mobile roaming charges ban in 2017
politico.euRelevant Part:
Roaming will be banned in 2017, and from April 30, 2016, surcharges for
roaming will be capped at a maximum of €0.05 per minute for calls, €0.02 for
SMSs and €0.05 per megabyte for data.So in fact €1 = 20MB, or assuming a typical instagram image is 250KB, 80 instagram images. That's still pricey in my book. Background app updates... 200MB please, that's going to be €10.
That's only the cost until it goes away entirely in 2017, and it's still an improvement on what's being charged at the moment.
You're aware that data roaming in Asia (Thailand, for example) can hit you with 20$ per MB and no. That's not a spelling error.
The fact the roaming in other countries is more expensive doesn't make it any cheaper
The point is that international roaming is generally expensive right now, the EU is now mandating a transitioning plan to free roaming with an intermediate rate cap which is most likely an improvement over existing EEA rates (my ISP's lowest EEA rate at the moment is 0.06€/MB)
Get a local sim and pay 330baht/month for 3GB.
That's what I always do, when in Thailand.
Alas, you can't get a subscription as a foreigner (or at least, not easily). But you can get a relatively cheap, pre-paid SIM, which works just fine.
A lot of vendors at BKK (or any other airport) will be more than happy to sell them and configure your phone in the process.
They're also quite useful for reasonably priced phone calls home if you don't want to dicker with Skype and they can be topped up at just about every grocery store.
Anyway: Thank you for the tip. May it be useful to other travellers.
In the past it was not uncommon to get a €100 bill if you used your phone on vacation like you do at home. But it has become cheap enough that you do not really have to worry about it when you are on holiday for a week or two.
I normally only update apps over wifi.
I use it for news, but for video and maps with satellite view it's too pricey.
This is only for the transition period from 2016 to 2017, when there will be no roaming fees.
It doesn't make clear though if you will be able to use your program with roaming from April 2016 —they say explicitly you will be able from 2017.
Data charges without a data-plan are very expensive. Also it isn't still clear what will happen on prepaid card numbers, which many people choose as the only way to have a pay as you go service with reasonable charges.
June 2017 to be precise.
What should be mentioned is the single market where using a SIM card from another EU country could turn out cheaper than using a domestic one.
> The fair use safeguard also prevents, when necessary, abusive use of roaming services, such as 'permanent roaming', which otherwise could undermine domestic markets.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5275_en.htm
Personally, I don't think this should exist. Imagine it saying in the US that the "fair use safeguard prevents people from using a cheaper cellphone service from another state".
That would be absurd right? I see it the same way in the EU. It's like they are trying to prevent competition within EU and maintain local monopolies. God forbid a carrier from one country could actually pose a threat to one in another country!
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around. They keep mentioning "Open Internet" as well, but there are a ton of exceptions in this new directive.
Günther Oettinger from the EU Commission has been the worst in this whole thing. He has been pushing for local ISP monopolies, extended customer lock-in and so on from the moment he became the Commissioner for Digital Economy. I think he's also supposed to be a free market, right-wing guy, but he's probably just corrupt.
https://gigaom.com/2014/11/07/let-isps-lock-their-customers-...
It's like they are trying to prevent competition within EU and maintain local monopolies.
That's exactly the purpose of EU; regulate commerce by creating a system of quotas, preventing free competition but reducing the need for tariffs. Milk, cheese, produce, fishing, etc. This is perfectly in line with that idea.
And I believe both the EU Commission and the majority of the EU Parliament is supposed to be "right-wing" this time around.
Right-wing in a good part of Europe means they don't actively oppose regulated markets, not that they're free-market supporters. That's center-right, of course; actual right-wing usually means "fascist" (and opposes the EU itself).
Actual free-market supporters can't even get the required signatures to form a party in most European countries, let alone get elected.
This is the part that I don't understand. The original aim of the EU was to create a single domestic market. A year ago when the canceling of roaming charges was first proposed, no such safeguard was mentioned. So indirectly this would have really created a single domestic market with far-reaching consequences. Apparently the big telcoms managed to get their boy, Oettinger, to safeguard their small country markets from competition. Pisses me off.
The original proposal by Neelie Kroes from the previous Commission looked great. The new Commission ruined a good part of it.
That said, it still establishes some ground rules, which are good for the most part. I just wish there weren't so many exceptions to them, and I fear at least some of them will be abused. We'll have to see how it goes.
However, if Netflix, Spotify or Youtube manage to get that "specialized service" privilege, then we'll know the rules don't work and will have to be changed. Because right now that is NOT what the EU proposal is saying the new rules will allow to happen.
The clearly worst part from all of this seems to be the zero-rating, which I don't think should exist at all as it's too easy to abuse and too hard to contain with regulations if it exists at all. Plus, whatever regulations are put around it will probably help the big guys anyway.
Don't American mobile providers strongly suggest another network (drop you) when you live or mostly use your phone in an area for which they only have roaming coverage (through an agreement with a different company)?
Yes, I have known several people who have had this happen. One friend had a couple of kids away at college on his family plan- the company sent him a letter that they were canceling the 2 lines his kids used out of state (roaming), so he switched providers- they then wanted to charge him for breaking his contract! He sent a copy of the letter canceling the two lines and explained that they were the one canceling the contract.
I don't believe so, not in my exp.
This will probably lead to a TON of consolidation in the EU, and over the next 5 years you will end up with 4 to 5 big players.
> This will probably lead to a TON of consolidation in the EU, and over the next 5 years you will end up with 4 to 5 big players.
The markets are mostly dominated by companies with coverage of most of the EU already, really. Vodafone, T-Mobile, Telenor, Telefónica, Orange…
Three [1] exists in both the UK and Ireland, and has an "all you can eat" bundle [2] in Ireland, for €20/month, but their closest deal in the UK is £17.00/month on a 12 month contract. They also provide a "Like Home" service, where your bundles apply outside your home country, so I can use my UK mobile data/text/call allowance in Ireland and Vice versa. Despite not having roaming rates, It's still cheaper for me to use my UK sim here and have a separate one for home, as calling the UK from Ireland or vice versa on a phone incurs costs that aren't part of the standard bundles.
[1] http://www.three.co.uk/ http://www.three.ie/ [2] http://www.three.ie/eshop/sim-only-plans/prepay-sim-only/
They don't advertise it very well, but for £15 you can buy the "All in one 15" addon which includes:
- 'All-you-can-eat' data (with limits enforced over 100GB [0])
- 300 minutes
- 3000 texts
It includes 4G where available in the UK.
In my experience the 'Feel at home' deal works great when roaming on a Three network abroad (i.e. Ireland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Hong Kong), but on their partner networks it is horribly slow (i.e. USA).
[0] - http://support.three.co.uk/SRVS/CGI-BIN/WEBISAPI.DLL?Command...
The Ireland one gives you the "AYCE" data, with free texts and calls (to 3 weekdays, to all moviles weekends), and lets you use the 20 euro credit on top of that.
The free roaming service from Three is called "Feel at home".
The good news is that it can be even cheaper than what you mention, as it is available on pay-as-you-go tariffs as well.
The bad news is that there are some limitations on tethering abroad, and you do need to use your SIM in your home country at least once every 3 months. So it's not quite yet a situation where you can pick any cheap European provider and use them anywhere else in Europe without restrictions.
About tethering restrictions: I would have hoped network neutrality would forbid those as well. Probably not though.
All you can eat isnt all you can eat. It is throttled after 15Gb.
There is no mobile options in Ireland with decent caps. Living here and in a place that has ADSL1 and 4G available I tried finding a plan that would me actually consume media using 3/4G - there is no plan that doesnt throttle after at best 20Gb that I could find.
"Should your data usage exceed 15GB in a 30 day period and your usage affect other network users, we reserve the right to limit your Service."
The contract you mention is also available on a 30 day contract at £20/month. I picked one up this week for my upcoming trip to the states.
Good luck when you decide to cancel it though, Three is a pain in the ass to leave with their hour-long questionnaire and legalese. I really liked their service but it was so annoying to leave I don't think I'll ever use them again. I'm a giffgaff-ian, by the way.
Ive been with giffgaff for a few years now and recruited family and friends to it as well. £10 pm with practically free calls it has been great. But with giffgaff's odd venture into payday loans as well it does not seem like a community driven company any more, hence why I might move to Three's PAYG (as I hate commiting to subscriptions) https://www.giffgaff.com/money/loans
I'm not sure how much community drive there ever was. GiffGaff is a subsidiary of O₂, with some clever marketing.
O₂ would far rather 'lose' customers to Giffgaff than any other budget MVNO.
Interesting, I didn't know giffgaff was actually directly related to O2 besided using their network. Out of curiosity, I tried to find some information on Three and got a little surprise: "In January 2015, Li Ka-shing entered into talks with Telefónica to buy its British mobile division O2 for around $15.4 billion. In March 2015, Li Ka-shing confirmed it will be purchasing Telefónica's UK mobile division for £10.25bn subject to regulatory approval by competition regulator, Ofcom." So it seems Three is going to own both O2 and giffgaff by buying Telefónica?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutchison_Whampoa#History
The PAYG sim deal is cheaper (15GBP per month for the 'All in One 15' add-on) and works abroad immediately. When looking at their blog it seemed you had to wait for a month to pass for the Feel at Home to actually work.
I found the speeds were horrendous in NY also. But still better than roaming with my actual network provider.
"Feel at home" also works on pay as you go, and you can get a one-off, no commitment allowance that will provide it for as little as £10 (500MB + 300 minutes + 3000 texts, I think).
I've never felt the need to go for a contract in the UK, as PAYG is so cheap on Three.
No, because the new deal allows telcos to limit the free roaming usage to prevent this exact scenario.
To be fair, this could be easily worked around by requiring residency in the country of the operator.
Can anyone shed some light what happened to alternative roaming providers? [0] Seems like they are the perfect solution to affordable EU wide roaming, but nobody is doing it. Is there something I don't know that prevents companies from offering this service?
0: http://www.slideshare.net/Computaris/eu-roaming-regulations
Well, the EU decided that it was going to ban roaming charges!
The only reason customers would sign up to ARPs is to avoid expensive roaming charges. It's been apparent since before the ARP/LBO legislation came into effect that the EU was planning to eliminate roaming charges altogether within a few years. So, potential ARPs were faced with the prospect of operating for just a couple of years before their market effectively vanished.
It also didn't help that the mobile network operators dragged their heels on entering into agreements with the ARPs that did try to enter the market.
My Danish phone company 3 (which does business in a lot of different countries as well) offers a service called 3LikeHome.
3LikeHome lets you roam in 18 different countries, the data used is taken from your allowance, and you can call home for normal price.
I am a dane living in London, and even though they say it isn't for longer stays abroad, I have been using my danish number in the UK for over a year without any issues.
I guess there is no reasons for alternative roaming provides when regular phone companies makes these changes themselves.
Also a dane living in London using 3. It works great. Only downside is calling UK numbers at billed as if I was calling from Denmark.
Did 3 work well in Denmark?
I'm emigrating in August, and my experience with Three.co.uk in London was terrible (congested network, impossible to load a map or email when I most needed it).
3 works great in Copenhagen and other bigger cities, I have had no issues at all, but I think it depends on where you ware going to stay.
I had issues in Varde (close to Esbjerg) a few years ago, where the connection was bad, but that might have been fixed.
They have a map here: http://80.251.200.40/coverageportal_dk (sorry the shady link, that is what they provide)
Finally. Pre-iPhone, I was always able to use my GPRS/3G phones in various countries for free using data roaming. It would just use my normal (unlimited) megabytes. I could even tether unofficially.
Then the iPhone came out, and an “unlimited international data” plan was an additional $60/month, I believe. Basically doubling the monthly cost, and that didn’t have tethering.
THEN, they got rid of that altogether, and ever since it’s been a scramble in every country to buy a SIM card just to pay local rates and not get ripped off. It’s all the same internet… if you’re not at home and roaming agreements exist, the carriers should just be forced to pay each other fair rates.
Maybe it was different in the states, but this legislation applies to the EU and I can definitely remember paying ridiculous roaming charges in Europe pre-iPhone (on my Nokia E71!).
Several places/providers in Europe have allowed or do allow you to use your normal data plan for free whilst abroad. I got mine a couple of years ago, without even looking for that particular benefit.
Roaming never has been free in Europe. I think you're a little confused
The downside is that a majority will have to pay higher overall fees for the benefit of a minority (those travelling regularly aboard)
Rather unfair.
>The downside is that a majority will have to pay higher overall fees for the benefit of a minority (those travelling regularly aboard)
I am 99% sure that for most of the phone companies a call in a home country and outside of it costs the same. Especially, for companies with subsidiaries all over the world such as vodafone and tmobile
Scaled across millions of people the difference will be next to nothing. They're inflating the prices exponentially because "everyone else is doing it".
Making SMS "free" didn't make plan prices go up.
For what I'm concerned this is water down the bridge. The many years of excessive roaming fees have conditioned me to either switch of data altogether - relying on wifi instead - or use a local SIM when going abroad. As this still is a lot more affordable and I still fail to see the grounds for any extra fees when using a network owned by the same company which happens to lie on the other side of an arbitrary border I don't see any reason to change my habits.
(Crosspost from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9803815)
The problem with these sorts of legislature as I've experienced is that while the theory seems quite appealing it never really works as you would expect.
Canada did a similar thing a couple years ago. The CRTC imposed a law where an individual could only incur a maximum of $50 in data overage charges locally, and $100 when roaming. I was ecstatic when this was announced. And then one month I went over on data by $50. And then my data was cut off until I bought a "pack".
So yes, your phone bill will be unsurprising at the end of the month, but now your carrier will expect you to purchase a bucket of "roaming data" in the form of an add-on or package to your regular phone plan so that you can post your selfies with the Eiffel Tower in real time.
This will bring consequences, since, for example, package for uncapped unthrottled unlimited data+calls+messages is 19.94€ (Latvia), which is much cheaper than same packages in other countries.
From what I've understood operators will reintroduce wholsesale roaming prices, which means that home operator will still pay for traffic while their clients are roaming.
This will bring us cheaper roaming but we will most likely have two separate packages - for domestic use and capped ones while roaming.
This is a step in the right direction. The initial intent of GSM was to have a phone you could take anywhere in the world - and it would just work. Instead, companies and countries erected huge hurdles to true roaming with high voice and data costs. This will work - very similarly to how T-Mobile in the US has made data roaming "free" in a 100+ countries..
Bad that it is delayed by 5 months, a year ago it was planned to happen since mid January 2017. Good that they also introduced another intermediate tariff reduction since April 2016, which gets calls cheaper by at least 4x. After this, personally i will no longer care about what it costs, it is cheap enough.
And for this we gave net neutrality legislation away.
If you read the factsheet - http://europa.eu/!hB73fv - it has reasonably strong NN protection.
BS. There's no "reasonably strong" Net Neutrality, just like there isn't "a little bit pregnant".
This is not net neutrality, this is a sham. It's full of deliberate vagaries and loopholes, and is specifically designed to kill the real net neutrality as it exists in my country, the Netherlands.
The new telecom law is specifically anti-Net Neutrality, designed to stop any more member states from adopting it, and overrule those that already have.
The Netherlands will vote against (government already announced that), but it won't matter. We'll be overruled. Once again we'll lose yet another bit of freedom to the corrupt EU.
Nice idea in politics, in practice it will take much longer to be fully implemented. The mobile grid system in Europe is so scattered and non integrated, that technically this is not simple to achieve within a year.
To be honest i cant back this up with arguments and/or data. But this is what i heard from telecom specialists in the field.
This has been in the works for years, so telecoms have had plenty of time to get ready. They've also been offering much better roaming rates the past few years within Europe.
I think the main problem is that the prices telecom providers have to pay for roaming data will be higher, than the selling price to customers, resulting in losses for telecom providers. The only way to counter that is increasing domestic prices.
Brussels makes rules, but doesnt understand the market and industry.
> I think the main problem is that the prices telecom providers have to pay for roaming data will be higher, than the selling price to customers
Most of the telecoms won't be paying at all, except as an independent exercise; they're nearly all owned by one of about five companies (or else are MVNOs who are already accustomed to paying for data etc for their customers).
> the prices telecom providers have to pay for roaming data will be higher, than the selling price to customers
Aren't those regulated by this as well? I remember the first EU data roaming regulations targeted only what the operators charged each other rather than what they charged the customers, so there's precedent at least.