Posted by axxxr
Excessive charges for using your mobile phone abroad could soon belong to the past. The European Commission’s updated website of international roaming charges, unveiled today, adds further weight to its proposal to bring down these charges by means of an EU regulation.
ESATO NEWS
Posted by BobaFett
now that would be really great
but i am afraid its still a long way to manage it.
Posted by Scorchio
It certainly looks like this is going to happen but not for a little while yet. Here in tropical Ireland O2 have cut roaming charges for all post pay customers travelling to NI and for Business customers travelling to main land UK. Voda are doing something similar as are 3. About bloody time I say!
Posted by PeterKay
About time they ended it.
Posted by ares
Really good measure...this is the sort of things the EU should do more
Posted by masseur
it actually scares me to think about how much I have spent on roaming over the years, first when I only had an aussie sim and worked in London and Stockholm, then when I got a UK vodafone sim but was working around Europe
yikes!
this is definitly about time this sort of thing should be sorted IMHO
Posted by brix25
I'm travelling to Europe later this year and would hate to pay some of the ridiculous roaming charges...I'll most probably be buying a Vodafone Italia prepaid sim.
Posted by masseur
thats what I ended up doing, one pre-paid SIM for each country.
calling charges are, of course, more expensive that a contract sim in those countries but definitly less than roaming charges
unfortunately it was only after several years of roaming that the ability to buy pre-paid sims like we do today came available
Posted by Scorchio
Pity GPS phones are so expensive. Imaging a network that transmits via satillite!
Your network everywhere. Just imagine the phone calls. "Hi mum I've just reached the south pole what you doing?"
Back to subject, I recon the only realistic chance of non Euro roaming rates is if the networks end up buying into each other IE. Vodafone, O2/Telephonica ,Do co mo. This looks set to happen anyway but as it may take many years, we'll prob be waiting just as long for the abolishion of roaming rates.
Its all about the money!
Posted by deliciosomarron
I believe the intentions of the EU are that the roaming tariffs should be abolished as of june 2007 and calls in other countries should be at local costs (don't know if it's your home countries local costs or that of the country your in at that moment) and it will finally be possible to accept calls on your own number without sharing the costs, so there's no more need to get a local sim.
But I can still see the mobile operators making serious cash when you're calling to another EU-country than your own home country and while "roaming".
Posted by brix25
The telecom co's are sucking blood from a dead corpse. Ok, I just realised that my local network (VodaCom South Africa) gives me the option to receive only text messages when roaming in other countries so I'll choose this option when I'm travelling through Europe instead of receiving calls.