Roaming regulations update...

Davy

[Link] - published 03 February 2009

Some of the good points for consumers

Voice calls proposal
Regulation 717/2007/EC to be extended beyond 30 June 2010 – (period 3 years),
includes voice roaming calls at both a wholesale and retail level.
Wholesale cap - 2010 - €0.23, 2011 - €0.20, 2012 - €0.17
Retail cap - 2010 calls made and received - €0.40/€0.16, 2011 - €0.37/€0.13,
2012 - €0.34/€0.10 VAT Excl.

SMS – proposal
Regulatory obligations imposed with regard to regulated roaming SMS
services at both retail and wholesale level, Wholesale ceiling - €0.04, Retail
ceiling - €0.11 VAT Excl.

Transparency of retail charges - SMS proposal
Transparency measure to be introduced to alert a roaming customer to the
charges associated with sending a text message while roaming. This will be
free of charge

Data cap and transparency proposal
Measures to be introduced to improve the transparency of retail prices for
data roaming services, in particular to eliminate the phenomenon of "bill
shock".

In order to avoid bill shocks, mobile operators to offer their roaming
customers, free of charge, an opportunity to specify in advance a maximum
financial limit (cap) for data roaming services.

The wholesale charge (cap) for regulated data roaming services shall not
exceed limit of €1.00 per megabyte of data transmitted.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Random

those proposals look pretty good. While data is still expensive in it it's vastly improved and the ability to limit spend is excellent.

steve 0

Some of these proposals are getting closer to being implemented
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0310/breaking59.htm

The 785 members of the European Parliament will vote in their plenary session scheduled from April 21st to 24th, on the roaming proposal and if the Council agrees with the content of the vote, the new roaming rules will come into effect on July 1st, 2009.

Random

steve 0 wrote: »

Some of these proposals are getting closer to being implemented
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0310/breaking59.htm

If this all actually happens it's gonna be good!

Sam Vimes

I don't know about this. If the operators are forced to drop roaming charges they'll have to increase other charges to keep revenue up. Most people aren't abroad that often so two or three weeks a year at the higher roaming rate works out cheaper than paying more for the other 49 weeks of the year

blaz

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I don't know about this. If the operators are forced to drop roaming charges they'll have to increase other charges to keep revenue up. Most people aren't abroad that often so two or three weeks a year at the higher roaming rate works out cheaper than paying more for the other 49 weeks of the year

I don't agree Sam. I roam a quite a lot and I know that I was trying to keep my usage as low as possible, due to the high charges. When the original roaming regulation was put in place I increased my spending, so the operators actually got the same revenue from me: revenue from less calls at a higher price equals revenue for more calls at a lower price.

Sam Vimes

blaz wrote: »

I don't agree Sam. I roam a quite a lot and I know that I was trying to keep my usage as low as possible, due to the high charges. When the original roaming regulation was put in place I increased my spending, so the operators actually got the same revenue from me: revenue from less calls at a higher price equals revenue for more calls at a lower price.

And I don't agree with you

People have a perception of roaming as being expensive. The EU is making them drop the prices but it's still expensive. You increased your usage when the rates dropped but I'd say you're the exception. I know I'm going not going to use my phone any more than I do now. When I have to make a call I make it and when I don't have to I don't make one

Rsaeire

I'd agree with the above comments regarding operator price hikes. If the operators lose money in one avenue of their income, you can be sure that they’ll recoup that loss through other means e.g. increasing the price of sms across all tariffs, charging for voicemail across all tariffs, increasing the minimum call setup fee on tariffs etc.

ardmacha

I think people will use their phone more when roaming €0.34 per min in 2012 is less than some calls now. Data is almost usable when roaming owing to the present price levels, but personally I would use affordable data when roaming, although I have little need of it at home when broadband is readily available. Effectively in Ireland customers in border areas have been subsidising those in Munster . But the Irish operators are making good margins, whatever about companies elsewhere in Europe.

steve 0

Closer again
http://www.pcworld.com/article/161870/eu_set_to_pass_new_mobile_roaming_law_in_record_time.html

Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the 27 national governments reached an informal agreement to cut prices from July 1. The compromise they struck must be rubber-stamped by both institutions, probably in April, but the hard negotiating is over

Random

July 1st is after my holidays .. that's no use to me!

Would be nice to see some rapid progress being made on this though

steve 0

Missed this last week, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8010352.stm

Euro MPs have voted overwhelmingly to cut the cost of texting and using the internet on mobiles abroad.

Some people aren't happy with the original legislation
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0429/1224245598325.html

ardmacha

No. As I see it they have to charge you 11c. The only one that doesn't have a retail price is the data, where only a wholesale rate is specified.

ProjectC

Mr.S wrote: »

Isn't that the maximum cost the providers have to pay their roaming partners?

So while Meteor/o2/Vodafone etc are only charged 11c max for texts when their customers are roaming, they (Meteor/o2/Vodafone etc) can still charge us anything ontop of that?

no the max any operator can charge anoter is 4c per cent.

and the max any operator can charge the customer is 11c.

so