Roaming charges and irony!

faceman

So i head of to a luxurious tropical holiday to kenya for xmas with the missus. Prior to going, i contact o2 to find out what the preferred network is in this particular country. Im told that the preferred network is Celtel.

When im there its 40c to text home and €3.96 per minute to ring home. No brains needed to work out that its pricey!

Heres the irony. It worked out cheaper for me to buy a local celtel simcard, and ring and text home with that instead!! (approx 10c a text and about 90c per min!) Id love to know how o2 justify such a high roaming charge!

Anyone else had simliar experiences? Maybe a sticky could be put together to advise on roaming tips/preferred networks and all that jazz?

Urban Weigl

Where did you book your holiday? I realise this is an off topic question, but I am curious.

Back to roaming, that's unfortunately a pretty standard roaming rate. O2 have only recently reduced roaming charges in Europe, and even so they are still overpriced. There is little justification, considering the billing systems to handle this do not really cost any extra. It's profiteering.

faceman

Urban Weigl wrote:

Where did you book your holiday? I realise this is an off topic question, but I am curious.

A friend of the family is a travel agent in kenya who does top quality african trips dirt cheap. We're regular visitors. Feel free to PM me.

Urban Weigl wrote:

Back to roaming, that's unfortunately a pretty standard roaming rate. O2 have only recently reduced roaming charges in Europe, and even so they are still overpriced. There is little justification, considering the billing systems to handle this do not really cost any extra. It's profiteering.

3 have quashed their roaming rates in any country they're in. If they can, why cant o2 / vodafone?

BigMoose

faceman wrote:

Id love to know how o2 justify such a high roaming charge!

The roaming IOT (wholesale tariff that Celtel will charge O2) will almost certainly be higher than the rates you pay from the local SIM. Granted O2 will mark up considerably on top of that hence the difference you see.

Ghost Train

yes when i was in australia for a month last year bought a vodafone sim, was much cheaper that way.

Sure can't you can buy a pay as you go phone, with 80(120 at xmas) euro free credit for 50euro, or a 10euro sim card with 15euro credit, at least with vodafone.ie shop

Gillo

faceman wrote:

Heres the irony. It worked out cheaper for me to buy a local celtel simcard, and ring and text home with that instead!! (approx 10c a text and about 90c per min!) Id love to know how o2 justify such a high roaming charge!

What are Celtel's rates to roam when in Ireland??

lfc1892

I think you're missing the bigger picture.

How many carriers need to get paid to carry your calls when in Kenya? On top of that, how much revenue / Customers can an Irish network guarantee the Kenyan network to justify giving up their customers space on the network for the Irish roaming customer?

Whilst O2 / Vodafone / Meteor will make a profit on these calls (and let's face it they are not charities they are Businesses), a lot of effort is put in to get you this roaming in the first place. You still have a choice, like in the good old days before mobiles, you can use it or you can leave it.

O2, Vodafone in all their different entities operate in the different countries as private companies. Their main connection is branding rather than commercial.

3 is Hutchinson Telecom, they launched most of their brands around the world at the same time and have always been a single entity.

Have any of you ever Roamed with Meteor? You practically have to give them your passport number!

Sizzler

Have you ever seen the wholesale price for a call to Kenya ? I'm sure its the same if not cheaper coming back the other way !

Theres no justification for such a high cost, apart from screwing the customer. The rationale for 02 would be that they wouldnt have too many subscribers on their network roaming in Kenya hence they feel they can keep the price nice and high but suffice to say their real cost is prob only 10-15% of what you are seeing on your bill.

Nice margins

Footnote, theres DEFO no justification in such a high text rate either !

BigMoose

Sizzler wrote:

I'm sure its the same if not cheaper coming back the other way !

No, it's not. The Kenyan network will charge a higher wholesale rate for foreigners roaming on their network than the retail rates the locals pay. They are also out to milk a nice profit out of these rich roamers. You can argue all you like if this is fair or not, but why should they let foreigners on their network for the same costs as locals? As has been pointed out above, there is a cost to routing your in and outbound calls to/from a foreign network and you are taking capacity on that network, so they are entitiled to charge for it.

I dont agree with such high differences either, but the foreign networks are as much to blame if not more so than the home ones for these differences.

rogue-entity

Actually, in all the countries that O2, Vodafone etc operate in, they are more often then not owned by the one, single multinational entity. Hutchison Whampoa owns the 3 brand and the operating companies in each country they operate, they also own the Indian Hutch GSM brand as well. Vodafone owns the Vodafone brand, and owns, or owns the controlling interests in every Vodafone branded network in the world. Other companies, they affiliate with and the networks are dual branded (e.g. Smartone-Vodafone in HK or Cytamobile-Vodafone in CY). Telefonica owns the Movistar and O2 brands and related operating networks.

3, Vodafone, O2 and Telefonica can all charge nothing extra for roaming between their networks because they own them. They charge more because they can. 3 are charging nothing because they want to gain a competitive advantage by undercutting the other operators traditional business models and revenue streams.

Random

Some things I've noticed when roaming with O2 in Europe is that it's sometimes cheaper to send international texts when abroad then when at home. It's also cheaper to call internationally when roaming too. And sometimes it's cheaper to text on Vodafone DE than O2 DE.

*sigh*

Such is life though. Vodafone charge you international text rates on top of roaming text rates to text internationally when abroad.
With 3 you're lucky to get reception when abroad (though I believe it's gotten better).
And Meteor seem to have come out of no where with their UK roaming rates :O

Sizzler

BigMoose wrote:

No, it's not. The Kenyan network will charge a higher wholesale rate for foreigners roaming on their network than the retail rates the locals pay. They are also out to milk a nice profit out of these rich roamers. You can argue all you like if this is fair or not, but why should they let foreigners on their network for the same costs as locals? As has been pointed out above, there is a cost to routing your in and outbound calls to/from a foreign network and you are taking capacity on that network, so they are entitiled to charge for it.

I dont agree with such high differences either, but the foreign networks are as much to blame if not more so than the home ones for these differences.

Unless you have seen a carrier contract from such a country you're speculating A nice assumption but you can bet these operators take the hand off the likes of o2 when they want to sign new roaming agreements instead of trying to screw them like the local taxi drivers screw tourists at the airport

BigMoose

I'm not speculating granted it's been a while since I've seen one but I doubt European operators are arguing that much over African wholesale roaming rates. Given the distance, the number of people that go and the infrastructure when you're there (not much in some places) I cant see it high on an operators list as destinations to get the wholesale price down. Personally when in Africa I've been impressed enough to get a rock solid service in the middle of very poor areas to complain about the price.

Within Europe on partner networks it's a completely different ball game.

leche solara

On prepay Vodafone charge 49c for a SMS from Europe if on a European Vodafone partner. They only charge 25c for a MMS up to 100kb.
So why would anyone send an ordinary SMS? Because this information isn't widely known.

Random

leche solara wrote:

On prepay Vodafone charge 49c for a SMS from Europe if on a European Vodafone partner. They only charge 25c for a MMS up to 100kb.
So why would anyone send an ordinary SMS? Because this information isn't widely known.

Just been trying to find roaming info on the Vodafone website and yah, it is a bit of a mess :O

faceman

leche solara wrote:

On prepay Vodafone charge 49c for a SMS from Europe if on a European Vodafone partner. They only charge 25c for a MMS up to 100kb.
So why would anyone send an ordinary SMS? Because this information isn't widely known.

and imo thats dishonest trading by the operators.

dal

If you use AFT when in a different country the costs of sending a text are greatly reduced. I was in France last year and when I texted home it only cost me about 2 or 3c per message (I'm with O2).