Why Is The Roaming Free?

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by prion

I was also wondering about this. My sens was that incoming calls are probably free for all operators and not only for the global sims. I do not know if this is true.....

I beleive that in CPP countried they pay a small (wholesale) premium to connect the call, but that's it. In CSP (Cellular Subscriber Pays) (e.g. US, Canada) countries, there is a charge back to the roaming carrier. This was one of the problems they encountered when setting up roaming with US GSM carriers. All the European carriers just paid to connect the incoming call to the roamed carrier. In the US there had to be a way to bill the roaming carrier for air time. Most European carriers had not done this before and were not set up for it.