News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on The User Experience of Mobile Phone Numbers.

Re:The User Experience of Mobile Phone Numbers by Johnny555 on Sunday December 18, 2016 @04:01PM (#13207616)
Now imagine crossing the border, connecting to a new telco and being prompted to choose a data plan (or a phone number). This would be great! I’d purchase new phone number / data plan every time I’d cross the border. Telcos would profit from this and I wouldn’t have to spend time researching the best package (I will be presented with the options right in the popup on my phone)

The author has a very optimistic view of cellular companies -- in many countries, the official carrier rates for SIM's are far worse than those available from resellers, so the "Click here to roam" rates are not likely to be the "best options"

If telcos really wanted to give fair rates to roaming customers, they'd just negotiate more reasonable roaming rates so visitors wouldn't feel the need to buy a local SIM in the first place.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The User Experience of Mobile Phone Numbers by grkvlt on Sunday December 18, 2016 @04:52PM (#13207884)
> in 2016, roaming rates were still quite high in Europe

Actually, European roaming is incredibly reasonable, and set to get even better.

Since July 2014 roaming charges were set to EUR 0.05 per minute, and since April this year that was changed to a cap, with prices varying from the domestic rate to EUR 0.05 maximum. And the legislation [0] requires the telcos to make changes again next year in 2017, that will make roaming charges equivalent to domestic charges, i.e. abolishing them. Similar rules apply to data rates - between domestic rate and EUR 0.05 per MiB just now and no extra charge above domestic in 2017.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/roaming-tariff...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:The User Experience of Mobile Phone Numbers by vviktor on Sunday December 18, 2016 @11:21PM (#13209487)
Maybe I didn't state it right. What I meant wasn't roaming. When connecting to a new telco, when you enter new country, you would be able to choose new phone number and package. Simple as that.
[ Parent | on HN ]