Eu Regulatory Issues

[andy]

Originally Posted by snaimon

At this point in time it is hard to imagine FREE INBOUND CALLS across the entire EU as some of the international providers like UM & 09 offer.? A more reasonable expectation would be lower OUTBOUND and INBOUND rates -- perhaps a rate cut of 50%.? Even with that, inbound on German D1 will be 40 e-cents and I believe the lowest outbound with be 1 Euro per minute.?

You would certainly think T-MO and Voda would be able to offer lower roaming rates on internal partner networks.? You would even imagine they could program the SIM cards to RESTRICT roaming to these internal partner networks only.? True, that would reduce their revenues.

Stan

Actually, it isn't so difficult to envisage it any more. Vodafone Passport was first foreshadowed over a year ago, and introduced in about June.

It has incoming and outgoing calls at the normal tariff, plus a 75p or ?1 connect fee, when on a Vodafone affiliated network. This applies to contract and pre-paid.

Of course the connect fee seems high for very short calls, until one remembers that this was roughly the outgoing per minute rate before the scheme started. And people can plan a series of outgoing calls as one by using a 2c calling card. In several circumstances this can be as cheap as Riiing/CBW, eg 5p +2c per minute off-peak.

Now that Vodafone have been doing this for some time, I'm surprised that others haven't followed more quickly, and only the Irish networks have moved a bit. But I think there's hope that more is to come

So I don't want to accept a modest per minute fee for incoming calls, even at the 10c level. Right now, my incoming calls are free, and diverted to me free from a UK mobile; the latter part could end if it gets too popular I suppose, but maybe not before the EU manages to sort something out. And I can get my family and one or two others to call me back from landline for 5p/min or 2p at weekends.
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As for remarks later on the thread about people not caring or knowing about roaming costs, it is nearly always the latter.

I don't know about you guys, but I notice that if you tell friends that they can save a lot of money on their phone calls very easily, not only via the methods on here but cheap local providers, their attention span is about 10 seconds, which is long enough to say that three minutes work can potentially save hundreds of pounds, but not explain how before their attention fades and they decide it's too complicated.

Sometime in the next 2 months I need to persuade 2 people to sign up for Vodafone Passport. How long would a simple call to CS take? But I envisage having to remind them at least 5 times.

Recently, prompted by the EU Commissioner's announcements, there have been some articles in national newspapers and on the TV about roaming. Ofcom, our regulator, published guidance recently; it is very basic indeed, comparing main network roaming tariffs and only just managing to suggest a local SIM. I contacted them and asked if it was considered a finished article, or would they welcome suggestions for improvement, like callback - a nice chat with someone I'd spoken to before, said she'd forward my email ....... nothing more.