No EU roaming fees - no roaming (anymore)

[bylo]

Originally Posted by wolfbln

Sorry, i might have explained the term FUP once in the text. In Wikipedia.com it pops up as first suggestion. So I thought you are familiar with that term. The wording of "fair use policy" is an industry term for sure and I don't like it. What is fair about a throttle? And for me it has a moralistic undertone. But i will add some explanatory words. The Wiki is always hard to phrase as it appeals to people with very different foreknowledge. That's why a kind of manual has been added already.

The confusion about FUP arises I think because the acronym appears several times before the first use of the phrase itself (in the heading "Abuse and Fair Use Policy.") That makes it difficult for those who aren't familiar with the acronym to figure out what it means until later in the page.

The article describes the reasons why it's so tricky for the operators...

First, let me thank you and your colleagues for all the efforts you have made here and in the Wiki to help us all over the years. You have provided a very useful service that I have benefited from many times over the years.

I appreciate that an EU-wide regulation that affects countries that have their own distinct pricing models is going to be complicated. Otherwise it would lead to the sort of abuse you describe. (A similar situation existed with T-Mobile in the US when they introduced free roaming that included Canada. It was actually less expensive for a Canadian resident to buy a T-Mobile SIM while in the US, then use it primarily in Canada, compared to using a Canadian SIM in Canada only. T-Mobile responded by cutting off those who used their SIM to roam more than occasionally.)

Still, it seems to me that there is a need for occasional roaming when someone is temporarily outside their home country. For instance I'll be landing at MUC next week, then taking the train into Austria for a vacation. I don't have a German SIM because I generally don't stay long there. But it would be useful to roam on my A1 SIM, which I have had for several years, so that for example I can access my OeBB rail ticket to show the conductor while I'm still in Germany. My roaming usage will be a few MB at most out of the 5GB quota I have with A1. Roaming for such purposes should be simple, easy to understand and included in the cost of every SIM plan.

Unfortunately things aren't always that simple. As a result we get complicated solutions that are difficult, if not impossible, to describe. I think you have done a good job with the EU roaming page. Again, thank you.

P.S. I wonder how the various post offices share the costs of sending and delivering international mail. For example I just purchased a USB adapter from a Chinese store on Aliexpress. The total cost, which is less than €1, includes shipping from China to Canada. And yet Canada Post charges more than that amount to send a similar package within Canada. So how does Canada Post recover their cost of delivering the package to me?