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28-05-2009, 15:47
So far no one has come up w. hard figures as to what, for example, Vodafone pays ATT or T-Mobile for each minute one of their customers is roaming on those U.S. systems. My guess is that it is pennies. After all, they each sell lots of minutes to MVNO companies that use their systems - and those MVNOs can make a profit by reselling those minutes for 10 cents or so.
The same for U.S. customers who go to the UK. My guess is that ATT and T-M pay less than 10 cents a minute to the various carriers since they, essentially, buying huge quantities of minutes. Since they charge 99 cents (ATT charges $1.29 for some customers) - that's an outrageous mark-up.
A long time ago I happened to see a price list from one overseas carrier as to what they actually paid various carriers in other countries. I can't recall any of the figures and by now it would be seriously outdated. Besides, I am sure I was under an NDA at the time. At that time, rates varied not only from country to country, but rates varied among diff. carriers within a country. I would guess that's still true.
What I can't understand is why a company like T-M doesn't encourage its own customers to roam on its own systems in other countries. The roaming cost is the same whether a customer roams on a T-M system or another system in a given country.
...mike
Make use of T-M's UMA/wifi free calling from any place in the world with access to wifi. I use an LG G6, wife an S7)
A/o Oct 20, 2013 no need for intl prepaid as T-Mobile U.S. includes voice roaming at 20¢/min (in and out)., unlimited text (in and out), and unlimited data in 140+ countries.
My Plan -[6 lines] U.S. T-Mobile unlimited minutes (incoming and outgoing), unlimited text, fast data on each line. that $145/mo. total! . (In U.S. no surcharge for calling a cell.) If a line exceeds 2G of data in a month, pay $10 more for that line. [That only happens a couple times/year.
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