Does Anyone Know the REAL Roaming Costs Incurred by Carriers?

snidely

When VodaFone UK makes a roaming agreement w. ATT or T-Mobile in the U.S., what do they really pay ATT or T-M when a customer of theirs roams here? I am sure it's a small fraction of the HIGH rates they are now charging their customer.
An indication of this outrageous example in my case. I am grandfathered in on intl. roaming rates where T-Mobile charges 29-31 cents for incoming calls in many countries around the world. Present users pay $1/min in most of these countries - but $2 ($3?)/min. in Israel!! This is for incoming and outgoing. On my plan, if I didn't use a callback service and dialed direct, i would be paying 70 cents to $1.70 for outgoing.

Point is - It would seem if T-M weren't still making money on my rate plan, they would cancel it. It would guess that at some point one major carrier will attempt to capture the international roaming market and drastically reduce the rates. If/when this happens, the International roaming SIM is done for.

It would take just one major company to do this. The others would have to follow. Here in the U.S., when Sprint suddenly offered unlimited voice (in and out) for $99/mo., ATT, T-M, and Verizon followed within a couple days. If T-M U.S. offered everyone the same rates I pay, they could capture a lot of the world intl. market. It would pay non-U.S. users to sign up w. T-M here. Incoming 30 cents. Outgoing via callback service, about 7 cents more. European customers could forward calls from their landline to a U.S. number for less than 2 cents.

...mike

	(#1)
snidely (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Expert Posts: 451 Join Date: 09 May 2005 Location: Berkeley, California and Miami Country:	Does Anyone Know the REAL Roaming Costs Incurred by Carriers? - 27-05-2009, 17:29 When VodaFone UK makes a roaming agreement w. ATT or T-Mobile in the U.S., what do they really pay ATT or T-M when a customer of theirs roams here? I am sure it's a small fraction of the HIGH rates they are now charging their customer. An indication of this outrageous example in my case. I am grandfathered in on intl. roaming rates where T-Mobile charges 29-31 cents for incoming calls in many countries around the world. Present users pay $1/min in most of these countries - but $2 ($3?)/min. in Israel!! This is for incoming and outgoing. On my plan, if I didn't use a callback service and dialed direct, i would be paying 70 cents to $1.70 for outgoing. Point is - It would seem if T-M weren't still making money on my rate plan, they would cancel it. It would guess that at some point one major carrier will attempt to capture the international roaming market and drastically reduce the rates. If/when this happens, the International roaming SIM is done for. It would take just one major company to do this. The others would have to follow. Here in the U.S., when Sprint suddenly offered unlimited voice (in and out) for $99/mo., ATT, T-M, and Verizon followed within a couple days. If T-M U.S. offered everyone the same rates I pay, they could capture a lot of the world intl. market. It would pay non-U.S. users to sign up w. T-M here. Incoming 30 cents. Outgoing via callback service, about 7 cents more. European customers could forward calls from their landline to a U.S. number for less than 2 cents. ...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.