No EU roaming fees - no roaming (anymore)

[bylo]

Originally Posted by Schlips1

I found 18 times FUP - but what does it means? Fair Use Policy?

I think so. Perhaps the first use should include "Fair Use Policy (FUP)." In English FUP is normally the acronym for "follow up."

As for difficulty in understanding the page, I'd lay the blame on the telcos for making such a complicated implementation of so simple a concept. Ideally the page should be short, e.g. "You can now roam throughout the following countries at your home rates, i.e. without any roaming surcharges."

[wolfbln]

Originally Posted by bylo

I think so. Perhaps the first use should include "Fair Use Policy (FUP)." In English FUP is normally the acronym for "follow up."

As for difficulty in understanding the page, I'd lay the blame on the telcos for making such a complicated implementation of so simple a concept. Ideally the page should be short, e.g. "You can now roam throughout the following countries at your home rates, i.e. without any roaming surcharges."

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 article describes the reasons why it's so tricky for the operators:
Quote:
The regulation concerns 28+3 national markets with different rules, licences, fees and costs. The gaps within Europe are still wide. For example, consumers in Latvia spent in 2014 on average €3.70 a month and Irish consumers an average of €23.80 per month for using their mobile phones.

Europeans have different travel habits across the countries, and there are also different network costs in visited countries. Consumer retail offers vary widely between states. In 2016 the cheapest monthly deals offering 1GB of data, 600 minutes of calls and 225 SMS ranged from €60 in Hungary to €8 in Estonia (excl. VAT). For prepaid data 1GB is commonly sold at €10 in Germany, while you can get it for less than the equivalent of €0.40 in Poland.

Now, imagine that you want to impose one general rule, that applies to all countries and all roaming consumption shall be charged according to the domestic rate of the home country which is commonly referred to as "roam like (at) home" or RLH.
This will eventually lead to people in Hungary taking a SIM from Estonia and use it in their own country roaming forever.

Imagine you in Canada with the highest prices in the Americas will go down to Bolivia and take a SIM from there to use it in Canada at Bolivian rates. This will not pay off for Rogers, Telus and Bell, I guess. So the operators wanted to have a lot of safeguards in place.

It's a miracle that it's working adequately at all. And as an American you are probably not so unfamiliar with people who consider "state ordered" unified prices as "socialism" or the end of free maket society. You can find them here too.

[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?

[davidtheprof]

on a recent trip to Italy was going to use my UK Orange Sim, but unclear if add-ons for domestic use on pre-paid would work in Europe. And costs were very high, 30-40p/min for PAYG depending on plan! So I stuck with TMob USA, and played around with MTX data only sim in my wifi hotspot device, worked very well, 1.6 GB in Europe for 20 Euro. Great for Whatsapp or wifi calling on the road.

[wolfbln]

Originally Posted by bylo

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.

Thanks for your compliments and suggestions. I really appreciate them. I'm checking to replace some "FUPs" in the introduction by other (less technical) terms that mean essentially the same like "limitations". FUP can be mentioned and explained when the text is about the "policy" behind these limits further below.

Good news: Your Austrian A1 SIM will work in Germany at domestic Austrian rates (called roam like at home) (as long as its still alive).
It's easy to check: just go to the Austrian article of the Wiki, select your operator and look for the "EU roaming" section and for A1 it looks good.

You are lucky because it's currently a nightmare to get a prepaid SIM card in Germany registered and activated. I really had to greylist (or graylist) my country as many foreigners and locals alike can't register prepaid SIM cards on major brands like Telekom these days. That's how we fight terrorism here I hope this will change again. I've already did some updates about it here and in the Wiki.

[bylo]

Originally Posted by wolfbln

Good news: Your Austrian A1 SIM will work in Germany at domestic Austrian rates (roam like at home) (if its still alive).
It's easy to check: just go to the Austrian article of the Wiki, select your operator and look for the "EU roaming" section and for A1 it looks good.

Genau. I did the same itinerary a couple of months ago, coming back to MUC on 14Jun, so I missed the free-roam start date by one day.

But nothing is ever as easy as it should be. My SIM is micro size for a Nexus 5 phone. I recently bought a Oneplus 5 phone which uses a nano size SIM. I could cut my SIM down but I don't want to risk destroying it. So I have to bring both phones, then set up the N5 as a WiFi hotspot for the OP5 until I get to Innsbruck. There's an A1 shop about 500m from the train station. Hopefully they can transfer the account and balance to a nano SIM or they can cut the SIM down more accurately than I can.

You are lucky because it's currently a nightmare to get a prepaid SIM card in Germany registered and activated. I really had to greylist (or graylist) my country as many foreigners and locals alike can't register prepaid SIM cards on major brands like Telekom now. That's how we fight terrorism here I hope this will change again. I did some updates about it here and in the Wiki.

Yes, security theater at its worst. But at least they relaxed the liability for running public WiFi hotspots so for the past couple of years one can get it at MUC without having a functioning phone to receive an SMS code. Tiny steps forward...

[davidtheprof]

had a very good experience with MTX connect data only sim card on my personal wifi device, 1.6 GB for 20Euro over 30 days, very easy to set up.

[wco81]

Well I'm 0 for 2 with RLAH.

First I purchased Tuenti SIM in Spain, got 4G there but then dropped to 3G as soon as I crossed the border into France. 3G in other European counties and 3G in the US.

Then I purchased an A1 B.free Internet SIM in Austria 2 weeks ago, got good not great 4G speeds in country.

Now I'm right dab in the middle of Munich, just 1 or 2 blocks from the main train station.

It can't stay connected in my hotel room. When it does connect, it gets 5 bars on my iPad Air 2. It connects to Telekom.de 3G or O2.de 3G. Tried rebooting iPad, made sure LTE is enabled and it won't connect to LTE, if it connects at all.

I guess less than 3 months into RLAH, the carriers aren't taking chances and imposing FUP policies. Maybe EU residents will have to complain and then in 3-4 years, the EP might address it or come up with another acronym, one which isn't as misleading as RLAH, since that implies the same experience and performance when possible.

[peterdoo]

A1 is a Vodafone partner. Normally it prefers Vodafone networks in roaming. Maybe that is why they try to keep you out of Telekom and o2 in Germany. You might try to select Vodafone manually.

Tuenti claims that they do not prevent 4G in roaming. According to them it is the o2 roaming platform that does not allow their customers to use 4G in roaming. People are complaining, however it will take some time until these problems are solved.

[wco81]

I thought Tuenti was a Movistar MVNO.

I contacted A1 by Twitter and they said I should have 4G with all 3 carriers in Germany.

I tried Vodafone as well.

Maybe it's a problem with my device, like there is a special roaming profile I need or something.

Only setting I see is to enable or disable LTE or roaming.