I'm not sure about exact numbers, but at the moment I think they can charge eachother somewhere around 10 to 20 cents per minute at most (it differs for active/passive roaming). This limit would of course have to be lowered if roaming charges for customers were to be abolished.
I also wonder who will want to invest in next generation networks if the government regulates prices even in fiercely competitive markets.
I'd argue the fact that the EU legislates for customer's rather than for business' benefit is part of the reason the mobile market there is in so much better shape than here.
You need to consider where we come from. Back in the 80s most EU countries had exactly one telco, which was owned and operated by the government. I remember very well that prices back then were exorbitant compared to the US.
When they privatised the industry, they created regulators to make sure private competitors could even enter the markets that were still dominated by the formerly state run behemoths. So all of a sudden there were tons of telcos, they were very well regulated and tried to expand beyond their national borders creating even more competition in the process. That's what led to lower prices.
But the kind of regulation that creates functioning markets is very different from the kind of crude price regulation they are attempting to do now. What we're seeing now is the EU trying to be populist and shake their image as being remote and disconnected from people's needs.
The telecom sector has been consolidating for a while now and we don't have as many players in the market as before. That's what regulators should focus on, not prices of particular services.
It's not as if they're regulating the price of minutes or packages or something, here. They're outlawing a very particular class of charges with a very particular meaning, with what appears to be a very good reason.
Exactly. The current law about customer level pricing also includes wholesale pricing regulation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...
Limits at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati... give EUR 0.10 per minute of across-operator roaming charges.
I doubt that would be legal. Anyone knows for sure?
For one example, Vodafone UK for £3 will let you use your "UK minutes, texts, and data" in any european country. The reason they're able to offer that is because Vodafone runs networks in most european countries.
However you look at it the customer is the one getting screwed here. They are only bitching because they're being forced to re think their business model and make it more fair.
When you think that Vodaphone is doing it even if you're still using their network just in another country it makes you think what's the difference between this and stealing? They're not competing with themselves so it's basically a scheme to make more money.
Now, when Company A and Company B are actually two divisions of the same parent company (which is apparently often the case for Vodaphone) then you're right; the roaming fees are double-dipping.
Plus we're talking about roaming here it's not like a lot of people decide to go on vacation at the same time and stay there for years until the company collapses.
Have a look at the "Wholesale caps (Operator to Operator)" table. That is regulated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulati...
Where are you getting 3 from? Verizon, Sprint,(CDMA) AT&T, T-Mobile.(GSM) That's 4. There was a proposal for AT&T to buy T-Mobile but the Justice Department blocked that merger to preserve competition in the cellphone business.[1][2]
[1]http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2011/08/justice-depar...
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_purchase_of_T-Mobile_...
With our currently mobile population, I'm not sure everyone would like that. I have a phone number from a place I haven't lived in the past 6 years. I'm never going to change my number, and I know I'm going to move to a new place sometime in my life, probably more than once.
AT&T paid T-Mobile billions of dollars as a result of the failed merger, so they were going to supposedly use that to improve their network. I didn't notice an improvement.
As far as that "idea":
- An "open source network" makes no sense at all. Open source, what? Open source customer's billing information? The Linux OS that drives most networks already?
- Elon Musk could have already done so in the US or Canada given how horrible the networks are in either country. He hasn't.
- Elon Musk doesn't work in communications currently.
- Elon Musk isn't like the joker of the deck that you can just use to solve any issue or play any hand.
I hate roaming charges as much as anyone, nobody wants to pay 200%+ when they go to France or anywhere else within the EU. That being said, competition at least around here for mobile/3G is extremely healthy, prices have come down year on year and the choice/availability has gone up.
What I fear would happen if this went into force is that many (all?) of the smaller operators would go out of business overnight as they couldn't find a network within all continental european countries who will roam for them at a reasonable price.
Then you'll have Orange/Vodafone/etc who own a lot of the infrastructure across europe leverage that so essentially they're the only competitive player and get to set the prices however they want. They'll sell their subsidiaries roaming at X and their competition roaming at X*1,000.
Just look at the US: Their networks are inter-state, and as a result of having to cover such a large landmass it is almost non competitive. You have three companies controlling the whole country. Prices are extremely high and services/choice is poor.
I'd take what we have now, roaming charges and all, over a three network oligopoly.