They can't just drop customer support on a language of a country where they provide service! Linguistic laws are very strict in the EU!

That's why, although I see pan-european carriers as something inevitable, I do think that the customer care part will remain on a country-by-country or language-by-language basis, as most customers actually use the service on the country of residence! What might be able to happen is for them to be able to connect you to your local language customer care center, and for local customer care centers to be able to have some kind of communication and co-operation with such centers in other countries for end-users to receive seamless customer support regardless of the country where their SIM is registered!

Stan, I don't think the one you mention is a major issue: you will probably have, when/if you will have T-MO EU of VODA EU, a smart system that identifies the caller and the country and consequently provides customer care in the relevant language. I honestly don't think we will ever get to a stage where customer cares won't be available in the native language: not only this would probably constitute a breach of the operator's duties in relation to the telecom license held (i.e. Italian Ministry of Communications requires customer care in Italian - apart from consumer law issues), but it would be commercially a suicide: right now if you buy some high tech product, you may end up with a customer care operator with a strong foreign accent (located in Ireland or somewhere else), but the language will nonetheless be the one of the country where you dialed the 0-800 number!

You may be right; I hope you are right.

I am only thinking of the situation here in the US where the government and major companies are "in bed together" and they break the laws, left and right.... Like allowing private phone conversations and emails to be recorded or monitored without COURT ORDERS (by the way this started BEFORE Sept 11, 2001) ..... and, then a law is passed retroactively to give the violators immunity.

Like where there is little, if any, untainted, unbiased news sources that report the truth and meaningful news.... And these conglomerates (Faux News, GE-TV, Disney, etc.) are allowed to grow larger and larger and squelch any competition.

Stan

I think things are getting a little OT here...

Hmm, somewhat I supposed that this your real fear - the size and resulting power of giant corporations. I admire your imagination about the possibility of not using Polish, Slovak or any other less popular languages by over-the-border companies but, as you have already been told, it doesn't seem to happen in the near future for many, already mentioned reasons.

As to the idea of the EU telecom regulator, I don't think if it is really necessary. Since it was possible to cut roaming rates without it, I hope another activities of that kind may proceed within the existing organisational structures...