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girlwhowaspluggedout writes:
"The European Commission reports that, fearing high roaming charges, many EU citizens forgo the use of their mobile phones outside their home country. According to a survey done by the Commission (pdf), when travelling to another EU country, 90% of all EU citizens limit their e-mail use, 47% do not use their mobile internet connection, 33% never place calls, 25% do not text, and a staggering 28% simply turn off their mobile phones.
Roaming charges, the Commission suggests, are hurting the fledgling EU app sector. In trying to avoid paying data premiums, travelers limit their use of data-heavy apps, like travel guides, maps, and photo applications. Frequent travelers are even more likely to turn-off their phones, perhaps due to being better informed about the costs of data roaming.
The Commission reports that data roaming use across the EU has increased by 1500% since the introduction of price caps in 2008. It suggests that by eliminating all roaming charges, mobile providers will gain a further 300 million customers. These findings give further support to regulations proposed by the Commission that will create a single mobile phone market throughout the EU, enabling all customers to enjoy domestic rates when travelling within the EU."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by mojo chan on Wednesday February 19 2014, @04:39AM
There is competition but they all collude to rip us off. Each charges the others high roaming fees, which are passed on to the customers. If one drops their fees it won't help their own customers, it just lets the competition make more profit on the call since the price to the consumer is fixed.
One of the best aspects of the EU is the way they come down hard on this kind of bullshit. Consumer protections are strong here.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:08AM
And yet the article is about high roaming charges that EU citizens face.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mindriot on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:28AM
Well, let's put that into perspective a bit.
I'm German but currently in the UK. My rates:
For a quick comparison, AT&T [att.com] charges 0.38 USD/min for both outgoing and incoming calls in Mexico and Canada, that's roughly 0.28 EUR/min. And that's only if you've put out 30 USD/month for their special plan -- otherwise it's 1.00 USD/min! And for Europe, we're talking 1.00 USD/min using the Travel Minutes package -- and 1.50 USD/min without.
So, the rates for EU citizens within the EU are already quite decent. But the main problem is, we are abroad a lot more than Americans. Imagine you had to pay those international roaming rates in every US state other than your home state. That's why the EU is trying to bring down the roaming charges even more.
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