EU scraps 90 day limit on free roaming

[zMeul]

source: http://www.euronews.com/2016/09/21/eu-answers-call-to-scrap-no-roaming-fees-time-limit

via: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/eu-scraps-90-day-limit-on-free-data-roaming/

 

Quote

The European Commission is currently in the process of eliminating roaming charges for mobile customers travelling within the EU, which is great news. However, the Commission is also toying around with some safeguard ideas to ensure the new system isn’t abused. Earlier this month, a draft proposal called for a 90-day time limit on consumers before being charged extra for using their phones abroad. This was called out by consumer rights groups and has now been scrapped.

 

That means when roaming charges are outlawed within the European Union next year, you won’t have to worry about time limits and just use your device as normal. However, mobile operators will be able to check up on ‘irregular usage’.

 

As the EU’s digital commissioner puts it (via euronews), if someone has a place of residence in Germany or France, but uses a SIM card from an operator in Estonia for an entire year to take advantage of lower prices, then the operator will be able to check up on that and charge you more in the future.

 

EU can eat some shit right about now

if Germany and/or France have higher plan costs than Estonia, then France and Germany should lower their prices - wasn't EU supposed to be free market?!

[Misanthrope]

EDIT: N/M

[zMeul]

5 minutes ago, Jorgen297 said:

This is why I voted for #Brexit

last time I heard, some hurt is coming UK's way - all car components manufacturers plan to eject from UK and move to Eastern Europe

[tsk]

Repost. 

 

[jaggysnake57]

13 hours ago, zMeul said:

last time I heard, some hurt is coming UK's way - all car components manufacturers plan to eject from UK and move to Eastern Europe

not to mention several countries have now said they weill veto any deal the uk makes that doesnt allow there people to migrate to the uk to work

[alexyy]

13 hours ago, Jorgen297 said:

This is why I voted for #Brexit

what's wrong with you.

[Teddy07]

1 minute ago, alexyy said:

what's wrong with you.

his mother slapped him to hard on his head in his childhood

[ShadowCaptain]

14 hours ago, zMeul said:

last time I heard, some hurt is coming UK's way - all car components manufacturers plan to eject from UK and move to Eastern Europe

thats been a thing for years 

 

hell here is an article from 2014

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/09/germ-a09.html

 

"This tendency is rising sharply. The number of vehicles produced in Romania rose by 21 percent to 400,000, the fastest increase of any country globally.
The auto companies are building entire factories in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and increasingly China. Volkswagen (VW) mainly produces in Poland for exports, and in Russia for the domestic market. Since 2011, VW has carried out the labour-intensive process of assembling all cars below the Golf class outside of Germany."

[zMeul]

2 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

thats been a thing for years 

 

hell here is an article from 2014

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/09/germ-a09.html

 

"This tendency is rising sharply. The number of vehicles produced in Romania rose by 21 percent to 400,000, the fastest increase of any country globally.
The auto companies are building entire factories in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and increasingly China. Volkswagen (VW) mainly produces in Poland for exports, and in Russia for the domestic market. Since 2011, VW has carried out the labour-intensive process of assembling all cars below the Golf class outside of Germany."

I'm not talking about car factories

I'm talking about component factories, like brake assembly bits and pieces, head lamps, shield wipers .. things like that

[IhazHedont]

14 hours ago, zMeul said:

source: http://www.euronews.com/2016/09/21/eu-answers-call-to-scrap-no-roaming-fees-time-limit

via: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/eu-scraps-90-day-limit-on-free-data-roaming/

 

 

EU can eat some shit right about now

if Germany and/or France have higher plan costs than Estonia, then France and Germany should lower their prices - wasn't EU supposed to be free market?!

France phone subscriptions are actually pretty low.

[zMeul]

11 minutes ago, IhazHedont said:

France phone subscriptions are actually pretty low.

I wold not know about that, they gave it as an example

 

for example, let's take the cheapest plan in RO vs UK, as I could find from Vodafone

RO - 9EU/month gives you: unlimited minutes and SMSs in .ro; 3GB of data 4G; 100 minutes internationally; bonus 25 minutes in roaming

 

UK - 9.5 pounds/month gives you: 250minutes in UK and 250MB of data

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, zMeul said:

I'm not talking about car factories

I'm talking about component factories, like brake assembly bits and pieces, head lamps .. things like that

I dont think anybody knows yet, and things will settle down over time,a lot of it is a knee jerk reaction to an unknown situation 

 

 

 

ANYWAY back on topic


Roaming charges suck tits and im glad something is being done about it

[alexyy]

38 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

I dont think anybody knows yet, and things will settle down over time,a lot of it is a knee jerk reaction to an unknown situation 

 

 

 

ANYWAY back on topic


Roaming charges suck tits and im glad something is being done about it

Can confirm, Look of my dads face when he had a £60 bill for using his iPad in France & Italy, Roaming charges can actually die.

[ShadowCaptain]

4 minutes ago, alexyy said:

Can confirm, Look of my dads face when he had a £60 bill for using his iPad in France & Italy, Roaming charges can actually die.

Yeah

 

I have vodafone travel so i only pay £3 a day to use my contract - still sucks though

[alexyy]

10 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

Yeah

 

I have vodafone travel so i only pay £3 a day to use my contract - still sucks though

Kinda Ironic for him tho it was just before EE had the £3 day offer available.

[zMeul]

2 hours ago, tsk said:

Repost. 

 

not a repost

that thread tals about changes EU initially planned to introduce 90day ban

 

that idea was sapped - this is what the current topic talks about

[laminutederire]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

I wold not know about that, they gave it as an example

 

for example, let's take the cheapest plan in RO vs UK, as I could find from Vodafone

RO - 9EU/month gives you: unlimited minutes and SMSs in .ro; 3GB of data 4G; 100 minutes internationally; bonus 25 minutes in roaming

 

UK - 9.5 pounds/month gives you: 250minutes in UK and 250MB of data

In France 10€/ month can give you up to sms, mms and calls all unlimited with 5GB of 4G. And you're right, there are always huge differences in prices

[colonel_mortis]

On 22/09/2016 at 6:17 PM, zMeul said:

EU can eat some shit right about now

if Germany and/or France have higher plan costs than Estonia, then France and Germany should lower their prices - wasn't EU supposed to be free market?!

Mobile networks cost vastly different amounts to operate depending on the country - the UK is far more densely populated than France (the populations are roughly the same, but France is about twice the size), so operating a mobile network in France means that, in theory (and yes, I know there's a lot more factors), you would have the same number of customers, but your costs would be significantly higher. If you roam, you aren't using your home carrier's network, you're using the networks local to the country you are visiting. That means that the cost of your plan can be lower than the cost to the network of you being abroad, so they make a loss because you're roaming. Left on their own, the carriers make the roaming charges ridiculous, which is why the EU is stepping in to remove roaming charges within the EU, but the carriers still need some control - it is to allow you to visit other countries, so living in one country and permanently roaming is an abuse of the system, and shouldn't be allowed.

 

Personally, I think the 90 days system that they had talked about before made sense, and the latest chance will make it harder for consumers to know what they're getting - rather than a set rule for what you can do, it is now just an asterisk and some small print about some fair usage policy, so you can't know whether you will hit it or not.

[ThinkWithPortals]

On 22/09/2016 at 6:20 PM, Jorgen297 said:

This is why I voted for #Brexit

*sigh*

[zMeul]

11 minutes ago, colonel_mortis said:

Mobile networks cost vastly different amounts to operate depending on the country

except "you" are not serving one country anymore. you are serving the whole EU - and EU is a free market

 

if one of our ISPs goes to UK, for example, and starts offering same services at the same prices as here in .ro, the UK's ISPs will start going broke in matter of years

the same thing started happening in US after google went into the ISP business - Verizon, Comcast and the rest of the shitheads started panicking; the same is happening in EU, mobile carriers saw what's coming and they're afraid 

[Nineshadow]

11 hours ago, zMeul said:

I wold not know about that, they gave it as an example

 

for example, let's take the cheapest plan in RO vs UK, as I could find from Vodafone

RO - 9EU/month gives you: unlimited minutes and SMSs in .ro; 3GB of data 4G; 100 minutes internationally; bonus 25 minutes in roaming

 

UK - 9.5 pounds/month gives you: 250minutes in UK and 250MB of data

Eu am Digi frate.

 

5EUR/month :

unlimited national calls and sms

"unlimited" data, aka 10GB 3G and 30GB 4G, after that speeds get throttled.

3000 minutes international calls in mobile networks (unlimited in fixed networks) from EU, USA, Canada and China.

[AresKrieger]

On 9/22/2016 at 1:26 PM, zMeul said:

last time I heard, some hurt is coming UK's way - all car components manufacturers plan to eject from UK and move to Eastern Europe

Eh their economic growth is up compared to Europe despite their plans to exit, granted we will not know the end result until everything is said and done but clearly the doomsayers were at the bare minimum grossly exaggerating.

[Centurius]

On 9/22/2016 at 7:17 PM, zMeul said:

source: http://www.euronews.com/2016/09/21/eu-answers-call-to-scrap-no-roaming-fees-time-limit

via: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/eu-scraps-90-day-limit-on-free-data-roaming/

 

 

EU can eat some shit right about now

if Germany and/or France have higher plan costs than Estonia, then France and Germany should lower their prices - wasn't EU supposed to be free market?!

You'd have a point if phone companies in Germany and Estonia had to invest the same amount of money into their networks. The system you seem to want would allow for a company in a country with a very low cost of entry to the market to essentially benefit unreasonably from other networks. This would be an abuse of the system. The EU was never intended as a full free market economy just like basically no country in the world is. It is a mixed economy.

[colonel_mortis]

1 hour ago, zMeul said:

except "you" are not serving one country anymore. you are serving the whole EU - and EU is a free market

 

if one of our ISPs goes to UK, for example, and starts offering same services at the same prices as here in .ro, the UK's ISPs will start going broke in matter of years

the same thing started happening in US after google went into the ISP business - Verizon, Comcast and the rest of the shitheads started panicking; the same is happening in EU, mobile carriers saw what's coming and they're afraid 

No - the whole point of these rules are that the carriers are not supposed to be serving the whole EU, they are just supposed to allow their customers to use their phone anywhere in the EU. If a Romanian carrier wants to offer services in the UK, they are either going to have to install new cell towers across the country, which is very expensive, or they are going to have to reach an agreement with one or the existing carriers that do own cell towers. There are a lot of phone networks in the UK, but only four of them actually own infrastructure, while the rest just borrow from the big 4. There is competition between the big carriers to attract other carriers to use their networks, and between all the carriers to get people to use them over the others, so it is reasonable to assume that the prices are relatively close to the effective cost of providing that service. That means that a Romanian carrier would either cost a similar amount to the established networks, or they would be offering an inferior product in order to push the price down.

 

Instead, when someone who uses a Romanian carrier roams to the UK, the Romanian carrier will have made an agreement with one of the UK carriers to allow that person's phone to connect to their networks. That UK carrier will charge the Romanian carrier for the usage of their network, and while the price will probably be discounted compared to a UK end user's price because of the volume and the lack of some costs (eg support), it will still be more expensive than the cost to the Romanian carrier of having that person using their home network. That means that if people just went out and bought Romanian SIM cards, the Romanian carrier would be forced to increase their price, while the UK carrier, who is still being paid by the Romanian carrier for the use of their network, probably wouldn't be affected very much.

 

If all carriers had physical infrastructure in all countries in the EU, it would be different, but that's not the case.

[zMeul]

2 hours ago, colonel_mortis said:

-

BS

if tomorrow I'll start to use and UK e-mail service, does the UK company has to start building their own infrastructure here in .ro!? no, they dodn't