lol :D

I think phone manufacturers should go to Basel and test their handsets there! They would probably be bug-free then :lol:

In Trieste, it tends to be at least 8 on a 2.5 GSM phone:

Italy:
TIM
Vodafone
WIND

Croatia:
VIPNet
T-Mobile Croatia

Slovenia:
Mobitel
Vodafone Slovenia
VEGA

Right...
from my experience, the worst place that I remember apart from Basel and Trieste is the Austrian/Swiss border in the zone between Liechtenstein and the BodenSee (Lustenau/Widnau/St.Margarethen).

I remember that a manual network selection showed me:
(swiss operators)
-Swisscom
-Orange
-sunrise
(austrian operators)
-A1
-one
-T-mobile A
-tele.ring
(nearby-Liectenstein networks)
-FL1
-Tele2
(nearby-german networks, probably only echoes from the lake)
-Vodafone D2
-T-mobile D1
-E-plus

I think 12 GSM networks are enough... and maybe I didn't pick up all of them.

Anyway, I really think it's time for a change in the roaming charge trend in Europe.
Many operators have established networks in different countries, making economies of scale thanks to the single-brand policy: why shouldn't customers benefit of this?

I think I've said before, I was once amazed to get 14 on the top of the Dover-Calais ferry, and with a single-band (1800) phone - 4 UK, 3 France, 3 Belgium, 4 Netherlands.

This would be due to troposheric ducting of vhf and uhf that occurs in anticyclonic weather, where the radio wave is refracted at a temperature inversion, similar to light on a hot road surface, but still unusably low signal strength from Netherlands.
_

We might think that the networks could have done something years ago - cheaper roaming on affiliated networks, but it has only arrived recently with Vodafone Passport and this O2 arrangement.

But maybe some people can do this unofficially with a CallKey or other SIM, using call forwarding, and hope that the tariffs for this don't head upwards before others come down.

We have to hope that the joint denials and objections of the networks, that competition will improve matters without regulation, don't stall the EU Commissioner for long.

Most of the 12 networks I listed have sufficient signal strength in that zone for you to be able to register on them. I didn't try all of them and it was some time ago so I don't remember exactly which one worked and which one not.

The echo effect you reported is also common to me (I can detect French networks from above Genova, being Corse in front of me on the other side of Ligure sea, just beyond the horizon), but maybe we're going off-topic: this effect does not affect roaming as you're unable to register on that networks due to time delay because of distance >GSM limit.

Back on topic, I really suspect Vodafone passport was a move to prevent some fine from the European Commission and not to make customers happy.
In fact, seems it will not be extended beyond end of June, or an I wrong?

Vodafone plays copycat

"Vodafone Ireland is scraping roaming charges for all Vodafone Ireland bill paying customers travelling to Northern Ireland and the UK from March 14. "

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0308/vodafone.html

<span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'>Vodafone Abolishes Roaming Charges Between UK and Ireland</span>

Following on from the decision last month by O2 in Ireland to abolish roaming charges between Southern and Northern Ireland, Vodafone has now joined in and also abolished its international roaming charges between the UK and Ireland.

"I'm delighted to announce that from next Tuesday, the cost will be the same as local rates for all our bill paying customers when they use their phone in Northern Ireland or the UK on the Vodafone network, said Teresa Elder, CEO, Vodafone Ireland. This offer is the best in the Irish marketplace because it benefits all our customers, for both business and personal use. We're delighted to announce it today just ahead of the busy holiday period, when many of our customers will be travelling to sporting events in the UK."

Vodafone Northern Ireland customers already benefit from an Ireland caller price plan which offers customers reduced rates while travelling cross border. Vodafone Northern Ireland is currently working to deliver propositions that will further improve the cross-border roaming experience for those customers based in Northern Ireland. This will be the subject of a separate announcement in the coming weeks.

What will happen with Meteor now? They seems to be a bit out of the competition after O2 and Vodafone abolished roaming in Northern Ireland. They should find an agreement with T-Mobile or Orange in my opinion. The hard life of a small, indepentent operator...

Not only Meteor.

A man from O2 UK called me to welcome me to the network a month ago. In a half-hour chat about several things, he mentioned that they were already losing border customers to O2 Ireland ...

So as mentioned above, how long before the UK networks have free roaming in Ireland? And how about some better cross-border arrangements in the areas mentioned above ...

lucky you. No-one ever called me