lower rates from July 1?
 

The new EU-mandated rates are due to start July 1, and I see that some of the UK carriers are lowering their data rates, but closer to £1/MB than the 50p/MB that the EU requires. (Orange has not announced yet, though has adjusted its rates a bit in last few months). And mostly in various bundles, so you end up spending more per MB. Won't they be in violation of new law?

I live in the US, and use PAYG orange sim card when visiting. Want to be able to use it throughout Europe.

new roaming rates in Europe
 

Giffgaff just announced lower rates to comply with the July 1 deadline, looks like one of the simplest solutions.
Still waiting to see what Truphone does (I have two of their simcards!)

the major UK carriers are offering complex bundles that don't help PAYG visitors much

i am not quite sure that Truphone will lower their rates... even with today's market standards, their rates are higher than competition. i wouldn't recommend them.

have a look at maxroam simcard, they now offer a true UK number (Vodafone). http://www.maxroam.com/Info/Custom/M...3.aspx?cur=EUR

their roaming rates can be found here: http://www.maxroam.com/Info/Rates.aspx?cur=EUR

you can also attach on your sim a US number..costs 6eur.per month with no extra charges when be called on the US number

another good alternative with a true UK number prefix (not IOM or Jersey numbers) would be piranha mobile http://www.piranha-mobile.com/ .their prefix is +4474185 plus they offer a US number for free, automatically attached to the simcard.
you can also attch local landline numbes for almost all countries for just 4pounds per month, with no extra charges when be called to these numbers.
local uk+german landline numbers cost just 1.75 uk-pounds /month

Truphone is registered as a company in NY, USA, so they are not subject to EU regulations despite they may offer numbers from an EU member state.

that's true, i can't recommend these guys.

thanks for pointing me toward Maxroam and Piranha - lots of innovation going on!

by coincidence, this just appeared on the Truphone blog, perhaps signalling something forthcoming:
Final Countdown for high roaming charges in Europe - The Tru Blog

Truphone does well with very low rates for calls and data in the US, UK, and Australia, and decent rates for short term roaming in rest of Europe. Also very easy to add a UK number for $8 for a month when I visit. But Truphone seems to have been asleep for 2 years while other companies are busy innovating.

I like the way Piranha integrates VOIP, I'd try it just to see how that works. But don't like callback when roaming, (wife wants to keep things simple!)
Also, have to watch the data costs, as costs vary a lot by local provider, and it seems they work with multiple ones in each country.

Interesting that Truphone is officially US-based, originally appeared to be a UK outfit.

Thanks for the advice, after reading countless blogs and forums about what to get for my trip, decided on the Piranha option Piranha Mobile At first thought it was not working right as every time I logged in to view my usage it was making the calls and texts. But seemed to hardly make a dent in the balance. I contacted them to check and was told that that is correct, what a surprise :eek:. I also setup the VoIP as we were staying in a free Wi-Fi hotel and that worked a treat and overall what I thought was going to be an arm and a leg after reading so many blogs worked out to be a really good deal.

And Truphone has now confirmed that they don't plan to reduce rates for non-EU residents.
I can imagine this will be tough to implement, and maybe they’ll eventually be forced to compete with other sim cards that have lowered their rates.
But disappointing in the meantime....

truphone rates are out of market, not only now but since last year.

Outside of Europe, truphone and especially Maxroam are very expensive. So, unless their EU rates are very competitive, I do not see most EU folks considering them at all. Maxroam is a no no for non Eu travelers.

I wonder if times will come that European mobile operators will be moving to such "tax heavens" outside of the EU to circumnavigate the price-dictating regulations and be able to provide us competitive prices :roll:

has alditalk announced new reduced data rates or data bundles?

not yet, but their internet price in EU is already about one half of the max. allowed cap - so they might not feel the need to change it...

Orange has not reduced PAYG rates
 

it's now July 1, and Orange, for one, has not reduced their PAYG rates to meet the regulations. (even post-paid monthly customers have to buy bundles to get rates that meet the EU limits.)
That's a pain, I have two of their sim cards, the Camel plan is good when I'm there to call back to the US or elsewhere.

most networks will update the rates on their websites tomorrow.

there will be much competion from now on, so if alditalk won't introduce new or reduced data roaming packages they won't be the cheapets anymore!
for example europasim now offers 100mb per day for just 2euro...

You mean Vondafone Italy ;)

Europasim isn't an (virtual) operator. I'm not sure if it is even a registered company. It is just some German guy trying to make a large profit from selling probably illegally registered (faked codice fiscale) Vodafone Italy sim cards by hiding their name whilst selling.

Now after looking into this a little, I can't seem to find the €2 for 100MB offer on Vodafone Italy's website. Maybe tux can give some clarification on this?

yes it's a vodafone's italy simcard, i use the europasim with no problem since 2010... i don't really care if he's or not do legal trading...

From July 16th that option won't exist anymore.
There will be the new Vodafone Smart Passport:
Piani tariffari e tariffe internet estero: Vodafone

That offer was deleted after September 2011. Now it's 2,5€/day for 50MB.

@Effendi: isn't it an option in addition to the currently-existing Vodafone Mobile Internet Passport? It wouldn't make sense deleting that offer for another which requires other options.

You're right, Orange just updated, now 59p/MB for data roaming in Europe. Better than 4 pounds, but still not exactly cheap...
and their "bundle" or extra is still 5 pound for 4 MB!

The required rate is 70 cents per MB, plus VAT, with the exchange rate for non-Euro currencies taken from an official EU rate published on 1st June

For UK users, this appears to mean a maximum of 67.19 pence a megabyte

But some networks seem to be heading more towards flat rate bundles, though fairly modest sized, which is fine for some users but more expensive for others

With ATT USA, we are now paying US$30 for 120 megs of EU (and many other countries) data"

AT&T International - Wireless from AT&T

With Verizon, it is US$25 for 100 megs of EU (and many other countries) data:

Global Data

Voice is still more expensive, but you'd think that Orange (France Telecom & TMobile) could offer cheaper data packages for France and Germany than a US carrier could.

travelsim also reduced their voice & data rates within europe.
http://new.travelsim.com/wp-content/...lSim_rates.pdf
voice rates for calling within europe just 0.19eur. per minute
data rate within europe 0.50eur. per mb.

Just ordered a Piranha mobile sim, dual US-UK number is free, (not Estonia or Isle of Man, so cheap for people to call you), good rates in most locations, though data rates vary by provider in some countries (I've been assured that the sim will try to register on the "preferred" provider with cheaper data, we'll see..)
also want to try out the VOIP integration, on WIFI people are meant to be able to call you on the same number as the SIM.
outside UK and US, it's a call-back system, have to see how reliable that is. Had problems a few years back when I had a Geosim.

my experience with the reliablity of piranha sim is quite good and very competitive rates. the voip application worked fine on my android phone.
very important: if calls are received via the voip applicattion there is NO charge for the incoming calls, in all countries!
outgoing calls via the voip application are much much chepear than calling directly via the mobile network.
i recommend to use the voip application only via WIFI, not via 3G.

there are some countries (mainly non-european) that piranha sim is calling directly, call through without callback.

the sim in Greece registers to the stongest signal network availiable.
Piranha mobile uses a true UK number, as Maxroam do, not Jersey or IOM prefixes.

the only serious disadvantage discovered afterwards is that unaswered by the reciepient calls are charged, from the time the callback is answered.
the charge per unaswered call while roaming in Greece (depends on roming country) is 0.09pounds.
if the call is answered only the normal per minute charge is billed.

I also attached a local Greek number to my sim for 2pounds per month and works great, no additional charges when receiving calls to the Greek number.
local numbers are availiable for over 70countries

for data roaming i use Roamline & Ekit Global Premium Service simcads, depending which is the cheapest for the country i'm roaming.
these 2simcards have the lowest possible data rates for medium-high usage... medium-high usage=approximately above 60mb per week

thanks,
did you bug Piranha about charging for unanswered calls?
Have been using abroadband for data, but roamline is cheaper in many places. Wish they'd bring out some data bundles.
Wouldn't be surprised if there is more price competition now, with EU carriers lowering their rates.
Problem chasing all these lower rates is that I've now got a stash of cards all with some credit on them!

same problem with me.. too many sims!
well i did questioned them about the unanswered calls cahrge but it's written on their website as they told me, it is actually on the "user guide" section.

You are correct. €0.70 x 0.7999 x 1.20 = £0.671916

However, Ofcom have mistakenly told the mobile networks to use a EUR/GBP rate of 0.82930, resulting in all the networks breaching the price caps by around 3.5% or more. Talkmobile is the worst offender, for example:

• In Germany, Talkmobile charges £0.70/MB, 4.2% more than the price cap of £0.671916/MB (including VAT).
• In Spain, Talkmobile charges £0.29/min, 4.2% more than the price cap of £0.2783652/min (including VAT).
• In Norway (part of the EEA), Talkmobile charges £0.25 to send a text, 3.5 times the price cap of £0.071991 (no VAT applicable).
• In Réunion (an integral part of France and the EU), Talkmobile charges £1.70/min, 7.3 times the price cap of £0.231971/min (no VAT applicable).
• In Gibraltar (part of the EU since 1973), Talkmobile charges £7.50/MB, 13.4 times the price cap of £0.55993/MB (no VAT applicable).

Thats a rip off £1 megabyte they must be making a killing at those rates its best to go with giffgaff or 3 if your a heavy internet users on payg...

It is indeed a rip-off, but the altneratives that you suggest are available only within the UK. This topic is about roaming, i.e. outside the UK.

Actually it transpires I was a bit inaccurate with this, as the most recent roaming regulation has a different arrangement for the relevant dates to fix the exchange rate for the year.

The link to the new regulation, published in the EU Official Journal on 30th June, only appeared on the EU website a couple of days ago (and some pages have the old link), so I'm forgiving myself for the wrong assumption about the previous arrangement being carried forward.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...10:0035:EN:PDF

7. Where maximum charges under Articles 8, 10 and 13 are denominated in currencies other than the euro, the initial limits pursuant to those Articles shall be determined in those currencies by applying the average of the reference exchange rates published on 1 March, 1 April and 1 May 2012 by the European Central Bank in the Official Journal of the European Union.

To save people searching paragraphs - that's for retail purposes. For wholesale the exchange rates are taken from the 1st May.

The pound has gradually become slightly stronger against the euro in the last few months, so a slightly higher permissible limit in pence derives from that averaging, hence 69 pence rather than that 67 on one or two networks.

The relevant EUR/GBP rates published in the EU Official Journal on 1st March, April and May were 0.84390, 0.83105 and 0.81295, so the average is 0.82930. This is the correct rate that Ofcom and the UK mobile networks are using.