Comment by shiroiushi
2 years ago
>And I find it odd when people call me on WhatsApp.
Given that you're European, do you not have any friends/family outside your country, in neighboring EU countries? Wouldn't they have to pay high per-minute rates to call you?
Inside the EU / EES we usually have minutes included.
Right now my plan, with Orange, costs 7.5 EUR / month with unlimited 5G (for real), 16 GB of data when roaming, unlimited minutes when roaming in EU/EES, and 600 international minutes in EU/EES. We do have great deals here, BTW, I'm sure it's more expensive in other EU countries.
I'd have to upgrade for another 100 minutes with US / Canada, however, I have another plan from Digi that charges per minute but that's dirt cheap.
I do have acquaintances from US with which I communicate primarily via WhatsApp, but I don't need it for my family within EU.
> Inside the EU / EES we usually have minutes included.
Nowadays... but not so long ago it wasn't like that and the prices were abysmal. And considering that EU is somewhat smaller and there is higher chance of having international contacts make the IMs so popular (especially whatsapp)...
You're right about prices being higher not long ago.
> EU is somewhat smaller
By area? The EU's population is larger than that of the US.
WhatsApp is indeed very popular for IM, and nowadays, SMS is basically just for 2FA (I hoped RCS would change that, but it's too little too late unfortunately).
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https://mobile.free.fr/fiche-forfait-free
Example from one provider: nope with 100 countries. Including the US, Canada, China etc.
In Finland I see the opposite problem. Traditional calling is dead, so there is absolutely no competition on international calls.
National calls and calls to nordic and Baltic countries are typically included in the subscription. But once you have to call to let's say central Europe per minute rates are exorbitant compared to today's data volume pricing.
Looks expensive. What about the regular phone plans? For instance, the plan I use currently in Japan has high per-minute or per-SMS charges for international numbers. The trade-off, of course, is that it's dirt cheap as long as you don't call international numbers, and basically just use it for mobile data. In a place where everyone uses LINE for communication, this works well.