Eu Regulatory Issues

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by snaimon

You make valid points for resistance. I grant you calling out is not as convenient as with your local/national phone. How much are you [I write YOU but I mean someone from Poland or Austria or France or whatever European country] willing to pay for the convenience of using your local/national phone in a semi-un-united Europe, at least in terms of mobile cell phones?

I could accept 15-20 US cents/min for incoming calls (but I travel rather rarely abroad; if I traveled more often, it would be no more that 10 cents). Western (=richer) Europeans might accept a little more, I guess.

Originally Posted by snaimon

PERSONALLY, when I travel my primary concern is REACHING OTHERS back home and REACHING MY FAMILY with me. True, those may not be the concerns of the normal European user.

Mine is the same, but I don't want to speak for other Europeans

Originally Posted by snaimon

I also recommend a good calling card for or from the destination country to be used in preference to the cell phone. The cell phone phonebook can be still be used to keep those numbers.

I think that this sim mess is just to avoid "playing" calling cards unless as backup . Moreover, in countries where there are free callthru numbers, CBW/El would be enough....

Originally Posted by snaimon

Regarding the high initial cost of the packet, I would suggest buyers take a longer term view. IF the user travels out of the country every year on vacation and to different destinations, then surely the investment will pay off in a few years, no? Compare to buy starter packs in various destinations and sell, swap or dispose.

You're absolutely correct. When receiving free incoming calls only, a UM SIM requires only one 0.49? SMS to extend it's validity by next 9 monts. With initial credit of 15?, it would be enough for over 20 years

Originally Posted by snaimon

How much does an international SMS cost? Can't friends from home send and SMS if

In most Polish prepaid plans and all postpaid plans about 3 times more than off-net national one .

Originally Posted by snaimon

At least with the UM card, NONE of my phones has experienced compatibility issues -- Nokia 6610, various MOTOs (P-280, V66, V300, V330, V18 and even a Treo 270 and Treo 600. TRUE, your mileage may vary.

I'm not afraid about UM/09/Travelsim or Hop. My main concern is about Callkey SIMs...

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

Many organizations would rather pay $2/min to get an itemized call log than pay 15c/min with no call log. The bean counters rule the world but they don't actually care about reducing costs, they only demand to be able to count them.

It's the same what Stu said about what happened to his wife, right?
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/index.php?...hl=bean+counter

I must admit that I'm shocked a little about what you say about bean counters' behaviours especially that, I guess, you say rather about "free-market" USA than "socialist" Europe :unsure: .

And corporate life is really strange sometimes....
Personally, once I met a guy working for a multinational corporation. He traveled all across Europe and his office and home were in Ireland, but his phone had a SIM from Germany!. The company paid roaming costs for the time when he was at his home country :P.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

It's the same what Stu said about what happened to his wife, right?

Exactly! They are far more concerned that you might make a personal call than that you saved them $500. I once purchased a prepaid SIM, myself. Then I requested a refund from my employer only for only those calls I made on business. Including a detailed explanation of how I saved them some huge amount of money. Their response was to begin an investigation to make sure I hadn't done something illegal. That's "bean counters" for you.

[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.
_

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.

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

Exactly! They are far more concerned that you might make a personal call than that you saved them $500. I once purchased a prepaid SIM, myself. Then I requested a refund from my employer only for only those calls I made on business. Including a detailed explanation of how I saved them some huge amount of money. Their response was to begin an investigation to make sure I hadn't done something illegal. That's "bean counters" for you.

IMHO it clearly follows from what you say that international SIMs are not as attractive to business users as they might be just because of some stupid regulations and/or people :P. So, if EU/national governments forced lowering "regular" roaming rates, it would be useful anyway for the business world (somehow like reducing some taxes....) and bean counters would have just less beans to count

BTW, how did bean counters count non-mobile telecommunications services?
Do they accept billings from hotel phones only? How about using payphones or calling cards?

[Przemolog]

Originally Posted by andy

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.

UKE, the Polish regulator issued something probably the same - a 16 page pdf with a disclaimer whose content in brief is:
We don't present the best tariffs.
It's not a UKE recomendation for selecting a service provider.
All info in the doc is publicly available on the operator websites (valid as of Feb 06).

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by Przemolog

BTW, how did bean counters count non-mobile telecommunications services?
Do they accept billings from hotel phones only? How about using payphones or calling cards?

In my case, they take any itemized (call-by-call) receipt that I didn't generate myself. Hotel bills, etc. But prepaid calling cards are right out. They will issue me an AT&T or MCI postpaid calling card. The fact that it's 10X more expensive than a prepaid card is of no importance, to them. Bizarre, no?

[snaimon]

http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/nac...s/tarife/323891

FWIW:

M?nchen (rpo). Gute Nachrichten f?r Reisefreudige: Die EU-Kommission will angesichts teurer Handygeb?hren f?r Gespr?che ins europ?ische Ausland durchgreifen: Die Zusatzgeb?hren, auch Roaming-Geb?hren genannt, sollen ganz gestrichen werden. Medienberichten zufolge will die EU-Kommission die Gesetzesinitiative bereits n?chste Woche auf den Weg bringen.

March 26. Munich. Good news for those who like to travel. The European Union Commission intends to crack down on expensive mobile tarifs for calls to foreign European destinations. The additional charges called roaming fees will be eliminated. According to press releases the EUC will introduce the legislation next week....

Further news.....

in the new issue of Focus..... Tuesday.... Voda and T-Mo claim they have already reduced their roaming rates.

[sec]

More news (I apologise: only in Italian!)

Roaming: la Ue presenta la proposta per abbattere i costi ingiustificati del roaming

? stata di parola, il Commissario Viviane Reding che sei mesi fa aveva avvisato operatori mobili e governi sul costo eccessivo delle tariffe di roaming e ora ? passata all?azione, presentando ufficialmente la gi? ampiamente anticipata proposta di regolamento europeo per ridurre i prezzi.

?? arrivato il momento che il mercato interno dell?UE garantisca una riduzione significativa dei costi delle comunicazioni telefoniche per gli utilizzatori e gli uomini d?affari che viaggiano all?estero?, ha dichiaro il commissario della societ? dell?informazione e dei media ?Propongo pertanto di ricorrere ad un regolamento Ue per eliminare tutti i costi ingiustificati del roaming. Un utilizzatore di telefonia mobile non dovrebbe pagare prezzi pi? elevati solo perch? viaggia all?estero.?

Per quanto riguarda i principali elementi della proposta attualmente in fase di elaborazione, la Reding ha sottolineato che il nuovo regolamento europeo dovrebbe riguardare non solo i prezzi all?ingrosso ? cio? le tariffe tra operatori diversi - ma anche quelli al dettaglio, ?per garantire che i risparmi realizzati dall?operatore all?ingrosso si ripercuotano anche sui consumatori?.

Il regolamento UE impedir? quindi agli operatori di imporre agli operatori di altri paesi costi molti pi? elevati del costo reale ma potrebbe soprattutto eliminare tutti i costi di roaming per ricevere una chiamata quando si ? in viaggio nel territorio comunitario.

Inoltre, per le chiamate effettuate quando si ? in viaggio nell?UE, la nuova regolamentazione comunitaria potrebbe introdurre il principio della ?tariffa di casa?. Un cliente di telefonia mobile che viaggia in un altro paese dell?UE verrebbe a pagare lo stesso prezzo che paga di solito nel proprio paese di residenza: pagherebbe o una tariffa locale quando effettua una telefonata locale, indipendentemente da dove si trovi nell?UE (ad esempio per chiamare un taxi a Madrid) o una normale tariffa internazionale per le chiamate effettuate verso un altro paese dell? UE, indipendentemente da dove si trovi nel territorio comunitario (ad esempio per chiamare casa quando ? in vacanza).

?Sosteniamo pienamente l?impegno della commissaria Reding ad affrontare questo problema?, ha dichiarato Kip Meek, Chief Policy Partner di Ofcom, l?autorit? britannica di regolamentazione per le telecom e attuale presidente del gruppo di regolamentazione europea (ERG), l?organismo di cui fanno parte le 25 autorit? nazionali di regolamentazione del settore delle telecomunicazioni che assiste la Commissione. ?L?ERG intende collaborare con il commissario Reding per sviluppare un meccanismo pratico, adeguato e rapido per ridurre in modo significativo le tariffe del roaming.?

Il sito web aggiornato della Commissione messo a disposizione del pubblico oggi ? disponibile in inglese, francese, tedesco, italiano, spagnolo e polacco ? indica che per una telefonata di 4 minuti la tariffe di roaming variano da 0,20 euro per un consumatore finlandese che telefona a casa dalla Svezia a 13,05 euro per una telefonata di un consumatore maltese che chiama dalla Lettonia.

I dati forniti dal indicano inoltre chiaramente che in Europa il prezzo per una chiamata standard ? generalmente rimasto allo stesso elevato livello del settembre 2005 in tutto il territorio europeo (IP/05/1217), e in alcuni casi ? persino aumentato malgrado i moniti della Commissione all?industria circa la necessit? di ricorrere ad un regolamento europeo qualora i prezzi non fossero diminuiti (IP/04/1458, IP/05/901 e MEMO/05/247).

In alcuni casi, i prezzi del roaming sono persino aumentati nel corso degli ultimi sei mesi: nel Regno Unito un operatore ha aumentato i prezzi del roaming da 3,45 a 4,92 euro per gli utenti che telefonano da un paese dell?Unione europea all?altro. I consumatori lituani pagano per una telefonata dalla Francia da 4,41 euro fino a ben 12,08 euro.

I pacchetti speciali di roaming proposti da alcuni operatori non hanno riscosso un grande successo in quanto la maggior parte di queste tariffe sono offerte su base opzionale o possono comportare un costo mensile aggiuntivo. Solo in alcuni rari casi si sono registrati dei progressi. Un operatore ha introdotto in Belgio una tariffa fissa per il roaming che ha comportato la riduzione del prezzo da 7,20 euro a 4,40 euro per una telefonata in Belgio da Cipro. In Irlanda, a seguito del primo annuncio della Commissione su eventuali misure di regolamentazione del roaming, vari operatori hanno eliminato i costi di roaming per gli utilizzatori che si recano nel Regno Unito.

La Commissione ha gi? effettuato una prima serie di consultazioni sull?idea generale di un regolamento UE sul roaming internazionale, invitando a presentare osservazioni sul sito web della Commissione dal 20 febbraio al 22 marzo.

Sulla base della nuova versione del regolamento proposto, questa consultazione passa alla seconda fase dal 3 al 28 aprile, in seguito alla quale il commissario Reding, dopo aver ricevuto l?ok del Parlamento europeo e degli Stati membri ? che si sono gi? dichiarati favorevoli nell?ultimo vertice di Bruxelles - potrebbe adottare la proposta in giugno. (a.t.)

? 2006 Key4biz

(28 marzo 2006)

[snaimon]

Probably same as on teltarif.de today. I refrain from copying.

Bottom line is that it still seems fairly muddled as to what is REALLY going to happen.