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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the progress dept.

European officials agreed on Tuesday to outlaw cellphone roaming charges, beginning in 2017, when people travel across the 28-member bloc. The change is part of long-awaited overhauls aimed at improving how Europeans connect to and use mobile services.

The new rules, which have pitted many of the region's telecommunications operators against consumer groups, also include so-called net neutrality regulations intended to ensure that Internet service providers and other companies cannot discriminate between different services that run on their data networks.

Policy makers hope the changes will jump-start the use of mobile services in Europe and foster greater economic activity across the region, which in many ways is still divided by national boundaries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/business/international/eu-roaming-charges-net-neutrality.html


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:44AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:44AM (#203600) Journal

    Policy makers hope the changes will jump-start the use of mobile services in Europe.

    Wait, what?
    The Euros are always telling us how horrid and expensive mobile plans are here in North America, and how cheap they are in the EU. So why would any jump start be needed.

    Doesn't everyone in the EU have two mobile phones and 5 sim cards like we are lead to believe, even the 8 year olds? What's left to Jump start?

    Meantime, If I walk across the Canadian border, and forget to shut off my phone I could pay about a month's usage charges for the "Welcome to Canada" text messages sent to my by --- --- --- (you guessed it) My Carrier!

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:13AM (#203605)

      Which part of "in Europe" don't your understand?

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by moylan on Wednesday July 01 2015, @03:20AM

      by moylan (3063) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @03:20AM (#203616)

      i do have a stack of phones with multiple sims on prepay. :-) i spend €5 every 2-3 months for calls and data which i rarely use. 2 days of data per month when gaming and a few sms and calls to organise meetups.

      prepay though is getting harder to find here in ireland as they phase it out in place of rolling contracts. that means that i would have to spend €5 every 2 weeks to stay connected which is too expensive for the little use i have.

      when i can no longer get prepay i'll just ditch having a mobile.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by mojo chan on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:50AM

      by mojo chan (266) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @07:50AM (#203657)

      They mean when travelling. It used to be that people didn't take their phones on holiday with them, or had special ones for business trips. Since it has been known that this was coming for a long time many operators have started offering free roaming in most EU countries anyway. My own operator, 3, does that. This just makes it mandatory for all operators.

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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:08AM

        by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:08AM (#203682) Journal
        Not just roaming in the EU. Roaming in the US on 3 is cheaper than getting a local SIM, to the extent that they added something to their T&Cs saying that you had to use the SIM in the UK at least once every three months, because people were buying them solely for use in the US. Roaming in Canada is still expensive though.
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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:01AM (#203680)

      Mobile phone plans are much cheaper in most European countries than in the US, but the EU is not one country, so roaming charges apply if you use your phone outside of your home country, even in other EU countries. This has many people disabling data roaming altogether, so while data usage is through the roof in general, data usage while abroad is still hampered by the expectation of high costs. Mostly it's actually not that expensive, but since any flat rates and inclusive quotas don't apply abroad, the perceived lack of control over the charges is what's holding data roaming back.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @01:21PM (#203745)

      To make a more accurate analogy, consider the borders between countries in Europe as the borders between states in the US. Now does it make sense?

  • (Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:22AM

    by MrGuy (1007) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:22AM (#203608)

    European officials agreed on Tuesday to outlaw cellphone roaming charges, beginning in 2017, when people travel across the 28-member bloc.

    I'd be surprised if that number isn't a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/30/news/economy/greece-imf-default/index.html">down to 27 well before 2017...

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:47AM

    by canopic jug (3949) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 01 2015, @02:47AM (#203610) Journal
    And in the same move, net neutrality is scuppered [laquadrature.net]. The roaming announcement is just a distraction for a major loss. The new arrangement specifically allows tiered access [wired.com] also known as so-called fast lanes [arstechnica.co.uk], the the antithesis of an open Internet. It's not over for Net Neutrality in Europe, but it is a lot more work to achieve now. The roaming charges were going away anyway, so this is just a bone tossed to the public to draw attention away from what really happened.
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