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EU has investigated mobile roaming charges in Europe. I wrote about this long time ago. Operators has been slow in this issue and now EU is getting into real action. The EU's Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has voted overwhelmingly in support of the proposed cap on EU-wide roaming charges, fixing the price at €0.40 for outgoing, and €0.15 for incoming calls. EU is making easier for people to move around and make business in other EU countries but in ancient telco business you can see national boarders still too well. Regulation is strongly needed and this is a great step.
Now as a smartphone user I'm interested to know what's going to happen for roaming data charges. If voice roaming is extortionately priced, roaming data is not from this planet. It's no surprise for me that EU politicians know well Graham Bell and mobile versions of his innovation. But I'm afraid they haven't heard about mobile data service yet.
Comments
Jouni asked: "Now as a smartphone user I'm interested to know what's going to happen for roaming data charges."
Nothing -- for many years at least. EU officials have been lobbed to believe mobile data is so called "emerging business which canot be eliminated with regulation".
The above is a direct quote from Finnish EU specialists and officials in the Ministry of Telecommunications (MINTC).
Finnish EU specialists I interviewed estimated it will take at least until 2011 before we'll see any regulation in the EU for SMS (text) messaging or 3G/GPRS mobile data. Only prices of phone calls will be regulated beginning this year. Even this is late from initial plans.
However, officials in the EU commission have promised to follow up how competition is working or not working in these areas.
I know that almost all companies or even large enterprise have denied the use of 3G/GPRS data abroad. It could be that greedy large operators, such as O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone, are hurting the whole industry by making it almost impossible to take advantage of mobile data roaming when travelling across the 27 EU countries.
This issue is a major disadvantage for the whole of EU, and it's a shame EU commission hasn't understood this. For now, mobile users learn how to find WLAN hotspots where ever they are.
I wrote about this issue in March (in Finnish only, sorry for English readers): http://www.tietokone.fi/uutta/uutinen.asp?news_id=29968&tyyppi=1 .
(PS. Sorry for typos, it's late night here...)
Posted by: Tero Lehto | April 18, 2007 09:15 PMCiao Jouni,
as a frequent traveler in Europe this topic is quite dear to my heart. The situation is slowly improving however. Some countries like Italy and to some extent Germany have affordable 3G prices via prepaid SIMs which can be used by travelers as well. For other countries I currently use Vodafone Germanys Websession offer which allows 3G Internet access for 15 euros a day while roaming with a prepaid SIM. While not really cheap it's at least en par with Wifi costs and I can use it wherever I am at the moment and not only in the hotel room. Here are my various blog entries on these topics:
http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/data_roaming/index.html
Greetings from the Côte d'Azur in France via Vodafone WebSession and the SFR 3G HSDPA network.
Martin
Posted by: Martin | April 19, 2007 10:04 PM