|
Cellular forums Home > Archive > Cell Phones in Great Britain > March 2006 > Roaming & costs from fixed nets
You are viewing an archived Text-only version of the thread.
To view this thread in it's original format and/or if you want to reply to
this thread please [click here]
| Author |
Roaming & costs from fixed nets
|
|
| Colum Mylod 2006-03-28, 5:48 pm |
| Relevant to both uk.t.m & uk.t:
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1740935,00.html
In short:
[EU commissioner] said a website for consumers she had set up six
months ago had proved operators had failed to reduce their roaming
charges as promised. Evidence on the site, to be disclosed today,
showed UK-based operators charging the same as previously or even
more, with charges up to €4.92 (£3.38) for using a UK mobile in Italy.
Ms Reding aims to get such charges cut by up to 95%.
Orange and Virgin Mobile declined to comment. (Shame to lump O and VM
in the same line since O has been "simplifying" so much. Vodafone
cited their Passport as a defence.)
Juicy bit: BT has long campaigned against the termination charges
imposed by mobile companies on calls from land lines. "We get all the
flak, they get all the profit," said Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of
BT. "It breaks my heart for the mobile operators - but not really."
--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com
| |
| David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of bess 2006-03-28, 5:48 pm |
| Colum Mylod <cmylod@bigfoot.comREMOVE> wrote:
> Relevant to both uk.t.m & uk.t:
> http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1740935,00.html
>
> In short:
> [EU commissioner] said a website for consumers she had set up six
> months ago had proved operators had failed to reduce their roaming
> charges as promised. Evidence on the site, to be disclosed today,
> showed UK-based operators charging the same as previously or even
> more, with charges up to •4.92 (£3.38) for using a UK mobile in Italy.
Which mobile plan is that?
> Ms Reding aims to get such charges cut by up to 95%.
>
> Orange and Virgin Mobile declined to comment. (Shame to lump O and VM
> in the same line since O has been "simplifying" so much. Vodafone
> cited their Passport as a defence.)
The Passport is a pretty good deal though. However, it was fun to hear
someone from Vodafone on Radio 4's Today this morning squirming around
the issue.
As a side issue, I'm not thrilled with Tesco's roaming rates, 90p a
minute, in (to the UK only) and out. However, it is a truly simplified
rate- i.e. it works at that price anywhere, which makes it cheaper to
call (if not receive) from in more countries than on Orange contract!
Indeed, I'm surprised the EU commissioner doesn't single out Orange for
its blatant discrimination against new accession states- i.e. they
charge 110p a minute to call the UK from them. I used the Tesco sim in
Norway and Denmark this weekend, albeit briefly- worked great, even
GPRS!
--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org
| |
| Brian A 2006-03-28, 5:48 pm |
| On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:03:50 +0100, Colum Mylod
<cmylod@bigfoot.comREMOVE> wrote:
>Relevant to both uk.t.m & uk.t:
>http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1740935,00.html
>
>In short:
>[EU commissioner] said a website for consumers she had set up six
>months ago had proved operators had failed to reduce their roaming
>charges as promised. Evidence on the site, to be disclosed today,
>showed UK-based operators charging the same as previously or even
>more, with charges up to €4.92 (£3.38) for using a UK mobile in Italy.
>Ms Reding aims to get such charges cut by up to 95%.
>
>Orange and Virgin Mobile declined to comment. (Shame to lump O and VM
>in the same line since O has been "simplifying" so much. Vodafone
>cited their Passport as a defence.)
>
>Juicy bit: BT has long campaigned against the termination charges
>imposed by mobile companies on calls from land lines. "We get all the
>flak, they get all the profit," said Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of
>BT. "It breaks my heart for the mobile operators - but not really."
Paste:
"A British tourist or businessperson using a British mobile in
Belgium, for instance, would be charged a local call at local rates
for ringing a Belgian contact. But he or she would be charged at
international rates for ringing someone outside Belgium."
I would argue that the cost of an 'international' call shouldn't be
much different to the local call in most cases. We all know that, on
many landline tariffs, the cost is only 1p/min to many international
destinations. Mobile companies, presumably, are using similar links to
link international calls. In some cases international calls are
cheaper than local calls. Thus there seems to be little excuse to
inflate the cost of an international call other than to swell the
coffers of the mobile companies. This element should also have been
tackled under this legislation.
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.
| |
|
| On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:18:33 GMT, Brian A
< no_spam_bca1000@hotm
ail.com> wrote:
>"A British tourist or businessperson using a British mobile in
>Belgium, for instance, would be charged a local call at local rates
>for ringing a Belgian contact. But he or she would be charged at
>international rates for ringing someone outside Belgium."
What's ironic is that this is how it used to work until about 5 years
ago. The networks used to charge the local (highest) rate + 15-30 %.
The EU complained this was two confusing (as local rates varied by
network/time/country) so the networks switched to the current higher
but fixed country rates, creating the current crazy situation!
I'm surprised no ones mentioned this....
Rgds
Jonathan
| |
|
|
Colum Mylod wrote:
>
> Juicy bit: BT has long campaigned against the termination charges
> imposed by mobile companies on calls from land lines. "We get all the
> flak, they get all the profit," said Ben Verwaayen, chief executive of
> BT. "It breaks my heart for the mobile operators - but not really."
>
Bollocks
The man's got the attention span of a goldfish.
How long is it since BT owned a mobile network?
Did Cellnet/O2 lead this campaign? I never noticed
| |
|
|
David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
prestwich tesco 24h offy wrote:
>
> As a side issue, I'm not thrilled with Tesco's roaming rates, 90p a
> minute, in (to the UK only) and out. However, it is a truly simplified
> rate- i.e. it works at that price anywhere, which makes it cheaper to
> call (if not receive) from in more countries than on Orange contract!
> Indeed, I'm surprised the EU commissioner doesn't single out Orange for
> its blatant discrimination against new accession states- i.e. they
> charge 110p a minute to call the UK from them. I used the Tesco sim in
> Norway and Denmark this weekend, albeit briefly- worked great, even
> GPRS!
>
But I thought I read elsewhere you've got a Riiing SIM? Ok, no data ...
I too was amazed that Orange doubled the call charges for Eastern
Europe a few months before they were due to join. They told me they
were only passing on charges from the other networks - the old lie - I
said I doubted that several Polish Czech Hungarian Bulgarian Romanian
and all the other networks had suddenly all decided to increase charges
on the same day, and if they had why had Orange not complained that
there was evidence of a cartel to increase roaming charges? Irony gets
you nowhere.
Right now I'd suggest one of the Isle of Man SIMs - free roaming
already, outgoing calls from 13p/min, and other cheap possibilities.
| |
|
|
JC wrote:
>
> What's ironic is that this is how it used to work until about 5 years
> ago. The networks used to charge the local (highest) rate + 15-30 %.
> The EU complained this was two confusing (as local rates varied by
> network/time/country) so the networks switched to the current higher
> but fixed country rates, creating the current crazy situation!
>
Absolutely right for some networks. Orange used to have much cheaper
roaming than the others. Also in 1999 when I joined, the cost of UK
calls outside inclusive minutes was around the same level as many of
the roaming calls at 20 to 30p per minute. UK minute costs are roughly
a quarter and roaming quadrupled in some cases.
| |
| David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of bess 2006-03-29, 5:48 am |
| andy <andy.ggrps@googlemail.com> wrote:
> David Horne, _the_ chancellor of the duchy of besses o' th' barn and
> prestwich tesco 24h offy wrote:
>
> But I thought I read elsewhere you've got a Riiing SIM? Ok, no data ...
Yes, I do, but I didn't need it on this trip. It was short, and any
calls I needed to make, I could make from a landline.
--
David Horne- http://www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk
http://homepage.mac.com/davidhornecomposer http://soundjunction.org
| |
| Thomas Kenyon 2006-03-29, 5:48 pm |
| andy wrote:
>
> How long is it since BT owned a mobile network?
>
They still own BT Mobile.
| |
| hairydog@despammed.com 2006-03-29, 5:48 pm |
| On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 10:52:20 GMT, Thomas Kenyon
<tom@art-it-services.co.uk> wrote:
>They still own BT Mobile.
But BT Mobile isn't a network.
--
Iain
the out-of-date hairydog guide to mobile phones
http://www.hairydog.co.uk/cell1.html
Browse now while stocks last!
| |
| {{{{{Welcome}}}}} 2006-03-29, 5:48 pm |
| Thus spaketh Thomas Kenyon:
> andy wrote:
> They still own BT Mobile.
Which uses the Vodafone network, not sure if there are some customers still
on the T-Mobile infrastructure.
--
www.dodgy-dealer.co.uk
www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk
|
|
|
|
|