MSE News: Cost of roaming in Europe to be slashed for millions of mobile customers

grumbler

chattychappy wrote: »

I always thought there scope for a UK premium "super SIM", ie a virtual network that does allow you to "roam" on all networks.

http://anywheresim.com/#why-have-one-mobile-network

http://www.strongestsignalsim.com/

chattychappy

thetriggerhappypwner wrote: »

I wonder if they will slash the cost for Roaming in America too...

The legal basis for the intervention by the EU is because they feel it distorts the single internal market by having cross-border charges. It's wasn't specifically because they thought the charges were too high, unfairly applied or not in the consumer's interest - though of course they are happy to play the consumer champion. The US is outside the single market so they would have to find another basis on which to intervene.

I have a small allowance for US/Canada calls. Can't even remember whether it's a roaming allowance or calls to the US/Canada as either way it's of no benefit to me.

grumbler wrote: »

I don't pay anything for incoming calls in UK. Do you?

I have a monthly contract with 4 SIMs which includes unlimited calls. So a fixed amount/month and nothing extra for calls. So in my case it's £0.00+€0.01 when I roam in the EU.

grumbler wrote: »

http://anywheresim.com/#why-have-one-mobile-network

http://www.strongestsignalsim.com/

Thanks, hadn't seen those. When I last looked, I found a couple of companies that would give you a Latvian SIM and offered free reception on any network and low cost outbound via internet. These look like real UK sims (I suppose they could be IoM/CI or something). anywheresim appears to restrict outbound calls to one network only, but you can receive on any. The second one seems better.

grumbler

chattychappy wrote: »

I have a monthly contract with 4 SIMs which includes unlimited calls.
So a fixed amount/month and nothing extra for calls.

What difference does it make?
Are you missing the point? Does anybody in UK/EU on pay monthly or PAYG pay for incoming domestic calls when not roaming?

milton1970

Quick follow up - I am an EE contest customer & reading the various articles it appears they get around this in Europe by forcing customers to buy add-ons to be able to access the Internet (I assume email to as all data) - they don't allow customer to pay per minute etc

Question just relates to data - calls and texts are included in plans

Is this correct?

Is it still legal or prevents customers from taking advantage of roaming charges reductions

Thanks

chattychappy

grumbler wrote: »

What difference does it make?
Are you missing the point? Does anybody in UK/EU on pay monthly or PAYG pay for incoming domestic calls when not roaming?

Yep, I missed the point. No I don't think they do.

milton1970 wrote: »

Quick follow up - I am an EE contest customer & reading the various articles it appears they get around this in Europe by forcing customers to buy add-ons to be able to access the Internet (I assume email to as all data) - they don't allow customer to pay per minute etc

Question just relates to data - calls and texts are included in plans

Is this correct?

Is it still legal or prevents customers from taking advantage of roaming charges reductions

Good point. I'm on the same deal - but frankly haven't worried about it because when not in the UK I'm usually in Asia and have a local contract SIM. From memory, you could opt out of the "block" (whereby you are forced to buy a data package...) - thus paying standard rates. I'll check and go through the regs if I have time. I think their bundle deals are within the 0.20euro/Mb cap though. (But not within the domestic price + 0.05euro if you take the domestic price to be zero.)

dank2015

Would I be right in that if people have euro roaming packs, such as the Vodafone Eurotraveller pack, they should now remove these? The Eurotraveller charges £3 a day whilst abroad to use the users inclusive minutes etc. But if you only send a couple of texts or use a MB of data a day, you'll be well under the £3 charge with the new roaming rates? Thoughts?

ballyblack

o2 had a roaming package £1.99 a day but charged 50p (41p +Vat) a call no matter how long you used it

Are they still selling this package??

which looks expensive now!

Ian011

A careful clarification is required to the headline that call costs will be slashed.

This applies only if you have a package of inclusive UK calls. If you normally pay a per-minute rate for calls within the UK, the cost of roaming will go up, in some cases to more than double the old rate.