EU Commission pushes for barring roaming charges by 2016

12 September, 2013
New EU Commission proposal takes on the EU roaming charges, says they don't belong in a single market.

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  • r
  • ridingthelightning
  • M3s
  • 14 Sep 2013

i hope this comes through. here in northern ireland, to call Ireland, just a few miles south of us we are charged the same price as id we were calling spain or france, because EIRE isn't part of the UK.

    • T
    • Thomas
    • m5@
    • 14 Sep 2013

    Anyone remember the news story of the village in Kent (England) ending up with roaming charges from across the Channel!

      • frh
      • 2Td
      • 13 Sep 2013

      MrTruth, 13 Sep 2013No, he was wrong no matter how you spin it. India might hav... moreEvery Indian in India can afford a cellphone. Not because of how much money they have or how rich they are but because of what owning a mobile phone costs. There are phone available in India for as low as $10. Used phones even less. And the call rates are lowest in the world, that go from as low as 0.5 paise per second i.e. ₹0.005 (which turns out to be US$0.00009). And yes you can speak for 1, 2, 3 or more seconds (which means you have seconds billing). And the call rate that I mentioned is of a prepaid card with lifetime validity (which means you only get debited for the call charges only, no rental charge). And the prepaid vouchers are as low as ₹10. This recharge will give you around 24 minutes of talk value.

      In India GSM is considered to be the driver of communication growth in the country. Here people will not find a landline phone for miles but will find a GSM tower somewhere close. Just FYI.

        • B
        • BC
        • ps$
        • 13 Sep 2013

        MrTruth, 13 Sep 2013No, he was wrong no matter how you spin it. India might hav... moreActually you're both technically wrong in some sense. India is huge in terms of population of course, a large amount of which are in poverty.
        However, it is not specifically area and borders which determine National Roaming which was mentioned as being in use in India.

        National Roaming occurs when you roam from your home PLMN/network to another network within your own country, generally due to coverage issues.
        Not all countries networks allow National Roaming, generally it is due to agreements between operators to increase coverage areas, and generally is in countries where there are many smaller local operators or MVNO's. So, it's not necessarily about borders or areas, but is dependant on the setup,coverage and localisations of the countries operators.
        Generally this would be cheaper than International Roaming.

        International roaming is the ability to cross and International border into another country and have the ability to make calls while there. This is generally even more expensive.

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • Mf5
          • 13 Sep 2013

          once u r rating .. next time u shud rate on the market rating not market .. thats educative

            • M
            • MrTruth
            • 9xE
            • 13 Sep 2013

            geordie81, 13 Sep 2013but you get what he means though even if it was not correct... moreNo, he was wrong no matter how you spin it. India might have a higher population count (of which a large amount can't even afford a cell phone btw) but this is irrelevant as for Roaming (and that's what this article is about) all that counts is area size and borders.

              • m
              • max
              • 0Ub
              • 13 Sep 2013

              geordie81, 13 Sep 2013but you get what he means though even if it was not correct... moreThere are 28 states in the EU.You probably forgot Croatia that joined EU in July 1st 2013.

                MrTruth, 13 Sep 2013India huge, Europe small??? Where did you went to school? ... morebut you get what he means though even if it was not correctly written, the EU is made up of not 1 but 27 countries, and it also has a population of 750million as opposed to india's 1.25billion, you could fit the whole of south and north america and 95% of the EU in india, so yeah India is HUGE

                  • D
                  • AnonD-43357
                  • 0w4
                  • 13 Sep 2013

                  AnonD-185962, 13 Sep 2013Not being funny but India huge!! of course there will be ro... moreyeah, this is a typical rip off in 3rd world countries. i lived in brazil and they got it too. it's ridiculous to charge roaming fees within one nation! people make 10% of income that people in the staats or western europe make and than they have to pay the double price for literally everything.

                    • M
                    • MrTruth
                    • 9xE
                    • 13 Sep 2013

                    AnonD-185962, 13 Sep 2013Not being funny but India huge!! of course there will be ro... moreIndia huge, Europe small??? Where did you went to school?

                    FYI: Area of India 3,287,263 km^2, area of the EU 4,422,773 km^2, area of whole Europe is 10,180,000 km^2.

                      • t
                      • the_seba
                      • mN$
                      • 13 Sep 2013

                      This is a move in the right direction. It's enough Europeans get vastly overcharged on all electronics - this will at least sweeten the deal a little. Screw all mobile companies, their bloated profits, crappy customer service and a total lack of loyalty appreciation! Hopefully this will become MANDATORY in the entire EU.

                        • D
                        • AnonD-185962
                        • Prq
                        • 13 Sep 2013

                        frh, 13 Sep 2013Continental roaming. Here in India we have national roaming... moreNot being funny but India huge!! of course there will be roaming in your own country, I live in Mexico and here we also have roaming from state to state...Kinda hard to achieve what small Europe is trying to do...but once you leave the EU christ, prices are insane..try calling from Serbia with a SIMcard from Germany or Romania or so....you will see a huge bill...

                          • frh
                          • 2Td
                          • 13 Sep 2013

                          Continental roaming. Here in India we have national roaming. That means roaming beyond your home 'state' or province is charged more even if you are within India. Telecom operator have resisted any Govt. plans to remove this extra charge demanding sops. Maybe after Europe gets rid of roaming the Indian Govt. will get some boost to get rid of roaming charges.

                          For Europe it is going to be a major step after getting rid of national boundaries, there will now be more movement of people, good for business, good for consumers.

                            • p
                            • poor
                            • PAX
                            • 13 Sep 2013

                            i am from developing country and wish that here would be cheaper sim internet.good network are very expensive and weak network are also not cheap

                              • D
                              • AnonD-73975
                              • nx%
                              • 13 Sep 2013

                              here here about time !!!

                                • D
                                • D79_
                                • dS9
                                • 13 Sep 2013

                                What happens in a few years if the UK come of the EU

                                  • D
                                  • Dee™
                                  • PQ9
                                  • 13 Sep 2013

                                  That's great proposal!

                                    • E
                                    • EskeRahn
                                    • 3ii
                                    • 12 Sep 2013

                                    Nice to hear that they will seek to put an end to current rip-off of tourist and business users.

                                      • y
                                      • yeah
                                      • j8w
                                      • 12 Sep 2013

                                      Anonymous, 12 Sep 2013if phone is locked and you use the sim from a foreign opera... moreyeah sorry i didnt read that part but yeah, apparently roaming charges are too expensive so they plan to slash the prices to €0.19

                                        • ?
                                        • Anonymous
                                        • HKJ
                                        • 12 Sep 2013

                                        yeah, 12 Sep 2013it means that you can buy a phone anywhere in europe and tr... moreif phone is locked and you use the sim from a foreign operator in uk you would still pay for an international call, 19p as specified, not the price for a national one, which in uk, 3Uk has it at 3p