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EU roaming changes July 2014
Yossi
Posts: 171 Forum Member
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Hi,
So there are a couple of things that I think should be happening but UK phone providers are just too quiet in regards of the new EU law on roaming charges.
From 1st July the max charges for roaming will change, that is quite clear and for example 1 mb of data will cost 20p.
But the second part of the deal is that the consumer will be able to choose a 3rd party provider for roaming (i.e. your UK company is O2 but when you travel to germany you pay to company X that has a better deal for you). Apparently companies in Germany and Spain are now informing their customers by letter on how to do this, but I have not heard anything at all from my company in the UK (Three).
Anyone knows anything about this?
So there are a couple of things that I think should be happening but UK phone providers are just too quiet in regards of the new EU law on roaming charges.
From 1st July the max charges for roaming will change, that is quite clear and for example 1 mb of data will cost 20p.
But the second part of the deal is that the consumer will be able to choose a 3rd party provider for roaming (i.e. your UK company is O2 but when you travel to germany you pay to company X that has a better deal for you). Apparently companies in Germany and Spain are now informing their customers by letter on how to do this, but I have not heard anything at all from my company in the UK (Three).
Anyone knows anything about this?
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Comments
That's correct.
All networks in the UK are currently working on this and will be announcing their plans shortly. Soon you'll be able to roam on a network of your choice and get everything routed/billed through them and it may or may not be cheaper.
However it's very complicated and probably no one will know about it/use this.
Compicated. EU well I never. Lol.
but it's 2 days away really.. when are they going to announce it? July 1st?
I only hope that this will make Three consider expanding the Like Home to all EU.. that would be sooo good. Unfortunately for me the countries I visit the most are not Like home countries (Germany, Spain, Greece).
T-mobile class it as "world wide" - and charge £1.00/minute. While Orange, EE and many others class it as being in their "EU rates"
You perhaps shouldn't expect your home network provider to tell you how to get a service from someone else instead of them but it works like this.
There are 2 methods for opting out of your home provider, both of which networks need to be capable of supporting. The post by plymouthbloke1974 refers only to the local breakout option where you change the apn to euinternet and so data doesn't go through your home network and you are billed by the alternative provider. Sign up should be easy maybe like commercial wifi. Not sure how successful this will be though as it means changing apn settings and ideally changing network selection to manual to avoid roaming onto a different network (steering should be disabled by your home network ).
The second option is 'single imsi' where you enter into a contract with a roaming provider beforehand who has an agreement with your home network. No setting changes required but you get billed by the alternative roaming provider who receive the billing data required from your home network. This can cover voice and text as well as data. In effect it works a bit like a full mvno but obviously relies on these alternative providers being able to put in place a business model that works. With margins under pressure from the end to roaming charges this is going to be more difficult than before.
Haha that is true why I'm glad Three have made it a Feel Like Home Country and Norway which is another European country that isn't in the EU but is in Europe. Now if only Guernsey and Jersey were sorted.
Sadly looks like Turkey is still far away from becoming an EU country 5-10 more years I expect main problem is Cyprus need sort diplomatic relations there and release control back of Northern Cyprus. After that I think they could work out a lot of the issues but that will be hard sort.
Wouldn't be to surprised if soon Ukraine try's for EU candidate status they have said they would be very interested in joining the EU after the new trade agreement that was signed a few days ago.
So far for me it's a tad bit confusing. Can I choose between roaming deals from the UK networks or from the country's networks I am visiting? Or even both?
You can choose from whoever is willing to be a roaming provider. This could be a UK network, foreign network or a third party roaming provider from anywhere (who might not be a network). Or you might have no choice at all if there isn't anyone offering services. We should see some network offerings soon. At the moment there isn't that many third party providers but the aim is to create a competitive market in roaming so it might take a bit of time to build up.
Turkey isn't European. 97% is in Asia. They may as well let China Join if they let Turkey join. Also the French and Germans will never allow Turkey in.
For the average person it sounds like it might be quite complicated/confusing. But I am hoping for some interesting deals as the Three Euro Internet Pass for me personally is just too expensive and the performance wasn't good enough it, when I used it in Berlin.
then again does it make sense to build that market considering Roaming will be scraped in about a year and a half?
France might try to block but I think Germany have already seen the advantage in letting it in they are clearly changing to a Western country over an Arab one. Been quite a few talks lately about unifying Cyprus and more will start now EU aid is given to Northern Cyprus.
I don't imagine it will be a quick process but imagine they would likely be at the voting stage around 2020-24.
I don't think Germany relishes the prospect of the potential of another 80 million people being able to move to Europe and can you blame them? Finges crossed we will have left by then and the whole European project starts to crumble. Anyway my point still stands. Turkey isn't European.
That's a question many are now asking. Originally the idea of building a competitive roaming market with these alternative roaming providers was to be the means by which excessive roaming fee premiums would be eliminated. However they then decided to accelerate the abolition of fees so it was done by price regulation. It's possible now the market may never develop as a result. Customers might not be bothered if there are no roaming fees although of course the ARPs could offer something as part of their packages to make it more attractive e.g. bundling other international calls whilst roaming.
From a technical point of view, there isn't anything to stop this market developing in future to cover areas outside the EU. The EU can't really cap prices for roaming outside the EU (well they could but as they have no control over what the foreign networks would charge for access it wouldn't really work) so maybe this could be a way of lowering prices for roaming outside Europe at some point.
http://www.three.co.uk/Support/Roaming_and_international/Roaming_abroad
From 1st July 2014, our customers have the right to switch to an Alternative Roaming Partner when roaming in the EU, who will provide you with a bundle of voice, texts and data to use.
If you choose to make this switch, you will not incur international charges from Three for that usage. This service gives you an alternative to paying our international roaming rates when traveling within the EU.
While we don’t have an Alternative Roaming Partner in place for you to use just yet, we are now working with a third party to provide this service soon, and look forward to sharing more information with you.
Please come back shortly for more information.
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