Three to introduce £2/day European roaming charges from May 2022

Tantalus86

No it still wouldn't. The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit. The argument is the comparison of roaming charges before and after Brexit. In the UK, this has gone from £0 to £2 (in the example of the three network). In Ireland, this has gone from £0 to £0. 

A negative impact, affecting the UK only and not the EU.

The initial cost of a mobile phone contract is completely irrelevant. Prices vary country to country, even within the EU. The post above used Ireland as an example and concluded that because Ireland is more expensive than the UK it must be more expensive everywhere in the EU.

Upsidedownandaround

Unfortunately you are looking at it from a simplistic completely self interested view of what you see on your bill and how it affects you.

The extra charges aren't a direct result of Brexit. They are a direct result of data roaming abroad being more expensive than domestic data. The EU previously prevented phone companies from allocating these additional costs to it's customers who actually incurred these additional costs. Brexit has simply allowed them to do this.

Had we remained in the EU then these costs would continue to be subsidised by increasing data package costs. So rather than people complaining about roaming now being charged for overall data prices would go up further instead. In Ireland when a phone company wants to put up prices they can't decide to allocate EU roaming costs to those who use them and will simply increase prices for everyone. Thus the relevance of costs in Ireland.

I don't see any negative impact affecting the UK. If people wish to use there data in the EU why should they not pay more to cover the additional costs the mobile phone company is incurring? Why should these costs be subsidised by increasing the costs on packages to people who hardly use data in the EU?

Hopefully it should result in more competition where by companies can offer different packages suitable for those who wish to use large amounts of their data in the EU, abroad outside the EU and for those who simply want to use data at home.

Obviously I understand your prespective from a self interested point of view however don't presume to think a couple of pound going on your bill a day when you're abroad in the EU as a negative impact on the UK.

Thrugelmir

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

Rich2808

Thrugelmir said:

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

Exactly - there is no such thing as 'free roaming in the EU'. There is a cost and it is born by domestic consumers having to pay more for their day to day calls and data. Just as the NHS is not free - it is paid for by taxes on us all.

Hence my comparison between three Ireland and three UK is entirely relevant - because people with three in Ireland pay £14  month more for the same package as in the UK (i.e. unlimited data and calls) because three Ireland are subject to EU regulations and the requirement to provide EU roaming. The whole reason people mostly go with three is their cheap high data/unlimited data packages.

Still you can't please some people - they would rather pay £184 more a year to save £28 for their two week annual EU holiday! So they blame Brexit for not being £156 a year worse off with three! And heaven help them if they visit Singapore or the US or Australia or Costa Rica (et al) where they would pay £30 a day to use their data/package with three Ireland but only £2 a day with three UK as three Ireland don't offer cheap roaming outside the EU.

Do the maths! You are better off outside the EU with three!

redux

Thrugelmir said:

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

After the supine attitude of the UK government.

They could have chosen to keep or replace roaming regulation so as to match the previous situation, but did not.

We shouldn't be too surprised.

Some of the time the EU regulators commissioners and MPs were gradually dragging the mobile networks out of their arrogant attitude the Single Market didn't apply to them, the Cameron government was sticking up for the viewpoint of the mobile networks, not the interest of customers.

As yet there is little or no sign of EU networks proposing increases in roaming costs here. Any myth that our networks are only passing on increased costs would be false.

Upsidedownandaround

redux said:

Thrugelmir said:

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

After the supine attitude of the UK government.

They could have chosen to keep or replace roaming regulation so as to match the previous situation, but did not.

We shouldn't be too surprised.

Some of the time the EU regulators commissioners and MPs were gradually dragging the mobile networks out of their arrogant attitude the Single Market didn't apply to them, the Cameron government was sticking up for the viewpoint of the mobile networks, not the interest of customers.

As yet there is little or no sign of EU networks proposing increases in roaming costs here. Any myth that our networks are only passing on increased costs would be false.

Why would they they create a law that restricts mobile phone networks from passing on the costs of using data abroad to the customers that use it in a country like Hungary but allow them to pass on those costs 2 miles away in Serbia?

redux

Upsidedownandaround said:

redux said:

Thrugelmir said:

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

After the supine attitude of the UK government.

They could have chosen to keep or replace roaming regulation so as to match the previous situation, but did not.

We shouldn't be too surprised.

Some of the time the EU regulators commissioners and MPs were gradually dragging the mobile networks out of their arrogant attitude the Single Market didn't apply to them, the Cameron government was sticking up for the viewpoint of the mobile networks, not the interest of customers.

As yet there is little or no sign of EU networks proposing increases in roaming costs here. Any myth that our networks are only passing on increased costs would be false.

Why would they they create a law that restricts mobile phone networks from passing on the costs of using data abroad to the customers that use it in a country like Hungary but allow them to pass on those costs 2 miles away in Serbia?

Did you even read my last paragraph?

Rumours about increases in wholesale roaming fees have no basis in truth.

It does not suddenly since Brexit cost any appreciable proportion of £2 a day extra to receive one phone call or send one text message, or even a few.

With the increases in data usage by some people, there were already some data caps on using the whole of larger bundles abroad.

Maybe that needed a bit of fine tuning, like some pence a day for over a certain amount of data per day, but adding up to £60 a month to a contract costing only a few quid a month at home is unsupportable, especially with modest or no data use.

Upsidedownandaround

I did read it.

I agree that there has been no increase in costs since Brexit. I have already said this on this thread.

However you seem to be ignorant of the fact that previous EU rules prevented phone operators from allocating the additional costs of phone use abroad in the EU and therefore would have been subsidised in overall package prices which everyone had to pay.

Now without EU rules they can apportion costs of EU data to those who actually incur these costs which they have done.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so and there is no rational reason for the government introducing the law you suggest they should have.

Obviously the amount they put those prices up is a commercial decision and it is up to customers to decide if that is too expensive or not.

redux

Upsidedownandaround said:

I did read it.

I agree that there has been no increase in costs since Brexit. I have already said this on this thread.

However you seem to be ignorant of the fact that previous EU rules prevented phone operators from allocating the additional costs of phone use abroad in the EU and therefore would have been subsidised in overall package prices which everyone had to pay.

Now without EU rules they can apportion costs of EU data to those who actually incur these costs which they have done.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so and there is no rational reason for the government introducing the law you suggest they should have.

Obviously the amount they put those prices up is a commercial decision and it is up to customers to decide if that is too expensive or not.

It seems that UK networks are amongst Europe's most competitive in their home market, with data bundle sizes increasing and prices falling.

So it makes sense that high data use abroad could cause them problems, while inter-network wholesale data rates seem to be €2.50 per GB or so at the moment.

You suggest now they can apportion these costs to the people who actually use the data. OK.

But they also intend to charge £2 a day to the people who send one or two text messages or a minute or two of calls. This is the point at which the charges are totally unrealistic reflections of cost.

A few years ago, while in Germany, I stopped a friend using his Vodafone UK to look up a single website, which would have cost him £3 (I think it was), though he said it's not too bad. It cost me 24 cents on a German SIM for the just under 3 MB. Now I could do this for 3p or 3c. But certain UK networks will soon be back up to a couple of quid for even this extremely modest use.

Some of us will go back to multiple SIM use, possibly including local, e.g. 300 local minutes, 6000 sms, 2GB, under €4 a month, or all unlimited €16 a month.

splishsplash

Rich2808 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Tantalus86 said:

The extra charges are a direct result of Brexit.

No it's not. It's a commercial decision to increase profitability.  That's the way the world of business works. 

Exactly - there is no such thing as 'free roaming in the EU'. There is a cost and it is born by domestic consumers having to pay more for their day to day calls and data. Just as the NHS is not free - it is paid for by taxes on us all.

Hence my comparison between three Ireland and three UK is entirely relevant - because people with three in Ireland pay £14  month more for the same package as in the UK (i.e. unlimited data and calls) because three Ireland are subject to EU regulations and the requirement to provide EU roaming. The whole reason people mostly go with three is their cheap high data/unlimited data packages.

Still you can't please some people - they would rather pay £184 more a year to save £28 for their two week annual EU holiday! So they blame Brexit for not being £156 a year worse off with three! And heaven help them if they visit Singapore or the US or Australia or Costa Rica (et al) where they would pay £30 a day to use their data/package with three Ireland but only £2 a day with three UK as three Ireland don't offer cheap roaming outside the EU.

Do the maths! You are better off outside the EU with three!

I'm in Ireland, with Three and I pay €20 pm for unlimited data, texts and 3 to 3 calls plus 60 minutes 3 to other network calls (which i rarely use).  I have roaming allowances in the EU (11GB).  I'm on prepay.  I'm not sure which package you were looking at - the most expensive one on prepay is €30 which adds unlimited all network calls, 30 minutes international calls and 17GB roaming data.