Comment by graemep
5 hours ago
> The UK then decided it was going to leave the EU, and pretty much overnight the major mobile providers reintroduced the roaming charges.
Even better, a lot of the MVNOs added nothing or far less in roaming charges. I think its purely because they have more price sensitive customers. In general people seem very reluctant to switch providers despite number portability, the right to unlock phones after a certain time, etc.
Roaming charges are far from the only example. The big operators are sometimes several times as expensive for the same package (the Vodafone equivalent to my 1p mobile packages is approx three times the price, even ignoring roaming costs) so clearly just do not need to compete on price.
One problem with getting good regulation is the influence of the currently dominant players. They are adept at lobbying to twist regulation to strengthen their position and maintain the status quo. We see a lot of this in IT, of course, but it happens elsewhere too.
The EU removing roaming is better than the situation in the UK. Although some operators (O2 I know of) give a fixed roaming allowance in the EU that is OK. Not as good as getting your full contract/PAYG allowance though.
eSIMs have made the virtual mobile operators attractive for short term data usage. Switzerland not being in the EU has very high roaming charges, but you can buy data on an eSIM for not terrible prices. Much better than standard network roaming data charges for sure.
eSIMs help with outgoing calls and data, but people need incoming calls and SMSs too so still get gouged on price.
EU roaming is only a partial solution, as your example of Switzerland. The moment you set foot outside the EU you get gouged.
Interestingly a number of British operators do provide cheap or free roaming to Switzerland. Vodafone has free roaming to a few European countries, mostly non-EU. So the situation in the UK might be better depending on where you are going, which operator you use, whether you are making phone calls or using data.....
This is interesting because I would have guessed that most people would have had broadly similar changes in price to the MVNO I use but just proportion to already higher prices. IN fact, the entire structure is different, and which countries are free/cheap/expensive is entirely different too.
The underlying problem is that these are heavily bundled goods with complex price structures so the operators always find a way to make an excessive profit - very likely an abnormal profit although I have not looked at the numbers I would need to confirm that.
If only they removed roaming. Roaming charges are an absurdity since the internet exists and that is how mobile operators run their backend. They should be outlawed fully.
Its somewhat complicated by countries that still have high pricing on international calls imposed by regulators, and by pricing differences between country.
It might be possible for a regulator to say something such as prices should not exceed a price set comparative to the operator you are using, or not more than what it coses your operator plus a percentage.
The fixed allowance is the same within the EU. It's not "no roaming charges", but it is that you must not be charged for occasional fair-use roaming (which is quite a lot of roaming). They can still ban you from roaming if you are living in a different country from your contract provider - you're not allowed to buy a contract in Slovakia and then move to Denmark.
> you're not allowed to buy a contract in Slovakia and then move to Denmark.
You'd be surprised: I picked up a French SIM when I was on holiday there years ago on a very competitive package (including on roaming)... it's still working and I have been living full-time abroad.
Is it "allowed"? Probably not. What are they gonna do about it, cut me off? Well godspeed and thanks for the years of cheap data.