Dev.SN

Roaming Charges a Major Hindrance to EU Mobile Use

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 18 2014, @09:41PM   
from the just-stay-home dept.

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."

• Re:Low-cost operators = expensive roaming Re:Low-cost operators = expensive roaming (Score: 1) by TheRaven on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:32AM

  by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:32AM (#2315) Journal

  Two Euros is about what I pay per month on my mobile. Two a day is good value if you're using the phone a lot in a foreign country, but it sucks for occasional use. I recently switched to Three's 3-2-1 plan (3p/min calls, 2p/SMS, 1p/MB data) and I've found that I use the phone a lot more. For one thing, I now rarely use SIP, because it's cheaper to use my mobile when calling mobiles and it's only slightly more expensive when calling landlines (and the call quality is a lot better). I don't use data much, because I'm usually near WiFi, but at 1p/MB I can happily do some low-bandwidth things without worrying too much about the cost. In particular, there's no step function. My previous provider was about the same price, but was 25p/day for data, with a 25MB AUP (i.e. don't go over it regularly, but if you do a few times they won't care). I almost never used data on that plan, because the difference between no-data and a tiny bit was a psychological jump. Now, the difference between no-data and some-data is the smallest currency increment available, so I'll happily use a few MBs when I'm out and not care about the cost, because it's so small. In particular, the cost of using a tiny bit of data every day is now 30p/month instead of £7.50/month.

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• Re:Low-cost operators = expensive roaming (Score: 1) by hankwang on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:48AM

  by hankwang (100) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:48AM (#2381) Homepage

  "Two Euros is about what I pay per month on my mobile. "

  Good luck finding a plan that includes decent data in Netherlands for that price. Apparently smartphone ownership and usage here is so high compared to network capacity that you'll have to pay 10-20 euros per GB per month, even with the domestic MVNOs.

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  Avantslash: Slashdot+SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org].

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