Does Anyone Know the REAL Roaming Costs Incurred by Carriers?

[MATHA531]

Originally Posted by rggoldie

In Australia, for example, I can roam with Three in Europe and pay much less if I am on a Three network in the country I am in. For example, data costs 50c/MB in Italy if I am on Three Italy and around $20/MB if I am on a different network.

Rupert

3 did that as well for some of its European customers but as I think I have read, it's ending that.

Also, Australia is a poor example as the way mobiles operate is more or less on the European model (caller pays the entire freight) than the North American model (you pay for air time whether sending or receiving).

Also a factor in all this is that gsm (I know it's a 2g technology and is slowly becoming outdated but it will be around for a while longer) is far from the predominant technology used in the USA. The largest carrier, by far, is Verizon which is not gsm. AT%T (originally Cingular of course) is a fairly recent convert to gsm. Only T Mobile has been gsm from the start. We also have had to put up with the added inconvenience of the different gsm frequencies here as opposed to the rest of the world although again quad band technology has for the most part resolved that problem (although there are still people walking around with tri bands, say 850, 1800, 1900 who run into trouble in a country such as Croatia which is predominantly 900)

Although I would like to believe otherwise, we're still a ways away from the concept of one universal phone number to use cell phone technology globally at affordable rates.