[rasseru16]

Well at least Three's feel at home offer still benefits people who don't primarily use 3 and still want a better roaming deal with pay as you go

[Pencil]

The first good thing to ever come out of the EU that would have directly benefited me and it doesn't happen.

[Chris1973]

Doesn't bother me, on the rare occasion I can afford to throw a few grand on an Holiday, I intend to spend every minute enjoying the holiday, not yakking or texting the very people i'm having a break from. In an emergency, they know what hotel i'm staying in (and if they can't be bothered to look up the number and make the call, then its not an emergency,......)

My holidays are very peaceful, no drama's no soap operas and best of all, no ringing or chirping phone.

[Mark C]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris1973

Doesn't bother me, on the rare occasion I can afford to throw a few grand on an Holiday, I intend to spend every minute enjoying the holiday, not yakking or texting the very people i'm having a break from. In an emergency, they know what hotel i'm staying in (and if they can't be bothered to look up the number and make the call, then its not an emergency,......)

My holidays are very peaceful, no drama's no soap operas and best of all, no ringing or chirping phone.

I'd be interested to see what the proportion of roaming activity is business, rather than
'recreational' use. You'd expect 80-90% of it to be business, but more and more people seem to be dangerously addicted to their phones these days, (as you say)

[SkipTracer]

Glad to say there’s no roaming charges on the Isle of Wight and that’s the closes I will be getting to going overseas.

[MTUK1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d123

Another strange conclusion, you would rather get out because HMRC tries to circumvent the common market by making arbitrary 'guidelines' relating to tobacco and alcohol. That way you would end up paying UK duty on every item ordered from another member country, like mobile phones from Amazon.es or .de as an example.

I would rather we vote for a government that would just apply the rules so the system did work as a proper common market and you could then order your tobacco from any member state you wanted...

I see we have our Brussels representative here with us.

[darkjedimaster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark C

Be careful with Turkey, it's not EU, (as well as Norway, Switzerland, the Channel Is and IOM) so check the small print !!

I wonder now whether these flat rate EU packages will stall, and gradually vanish again. The two or three quid a day allowance is quite good. I have similar with EE,
where I pay 5 quid/mth extra, and that gives me unlimited calls in EU/EEA when there, but I travel to Europe enough times to make that worth while.



There's some that would, some people do seem to have a strange idea what a holiday entails !

For the BIB, I went onto the Vodafone website and selected Turkey as the country that I was visiting, Vodafone then stated that Turkey was in their Eurozone 2 and was included in the list of countries that can be seen here

[MTUK1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkjedimaster

For the BIB, I went onto the Vodafone website and selected Turkey as the country that I was visiting, Vodafone then stated that Turkey was in their Eurozone 2 and was included in the list of countries that can be seen here

Seeing as 97% of Turkey is in Asia I don't understand why people think it's "European"?

[enapace]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUK1

Seeing as 97% of Turkey is in Asia I don't understand why people think it's "European"?

Seeing as the fact it is applying for EU membership only some of it needs be in Europe to qualify as European. Like some of Russia is European.

[MTUK1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by enapace

Seeing as the fact it is applying for EU membership only some of it needs be in Europe to qualify as European. Like some of Russia is European.

It's in the very early stages though. And it's rightly going to be opposed by France and Germany. I mean 3% of land mass in Europe does not make it European. If it's anything despite being in mostly in Asia it's more culture is middle Eastern not European.

[d123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUK1

I see we have our Brussels representative here with us.

Nope. I can see the disadvantages of the EU in its current state but will call an idiot an idiot when he does idiotic things (if you know what I mean). Some of the posts here have been along the lines of "I've got an ingrown toenail, I'm going to cut off my foot!".

Blame the EU for what it does wrong, not ridiculous notions like advocating leaving the EU because EU roaming isn't abolished in the published time limit, when leaving the EU would mean we would be back the mercy of the networks for Euro roaming, £1.50 a minute, £8 a MB, anyone?

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUK1

It's in the very early stages though. And it's rightly going to be opposed by France and Germany. I mean 3% of land mass in Europe does not make it European. If it's anything despite being in mostly in Asia it's more culture is middle Eastern not European.

Turkey's biggest problem is actually the Cyprus veto, they won't be getting into the EU until the North Cyprus question is resolved.

[MTUK1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d123

Nope. I can see the disadvantages of the EU in its current state but will call an idiot an idiot when he does idiotic things (if you know what I mean). Some of the posts here have been along the lines of "I've got an ingrown toenail, I'm going to cut off my foot!".

Blame the EU for what it does wrong, not ridiculous notions like advocating leaving the EU because EU roaming isn't abolished in the published time limit, when leaving the EU would mean we would be back the mercy of the networks for Euro roaming, £1.50 a minute, £8 a MB, anyone?



Turkey's biggest problem is actually the Cyprus veto, they won't be getting into the EU until the North Cyprus question is resolved.

That's it. We'll stay in the EU for cheap roaming then. Sod Lack of democracy and the fact that the EU controls our lives and makes the majority of our laws. And you have no way of knowing that prices would go up if we left.

Turkeys biggest problem is that it isn't European. Something proponents of them joining seem to forget.

[d123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUK1

That's it. We'll stay in the EU for cheap roaming then. Sod Lack of democracy and the fact that the EU controls our lives and makes the majority of our laws. And you have no way of knowing that prices would go up if we left.

Exactly right, we should stay in the EU for cheap roaming (if it matters to you), we should leave the EU because you feel it has a lack of democracy, because you feel it controls our lives and makes the majority of our laws (if this happened and it's important to you).

Completely separate issues and conclusions.

We shouldn't be mixing the problems and then coming to strange conclusions...

I burnt my toast this morning, **** that, it's the EU's fault, we need to leave the EU now and then there'll be no more burnt toast!

[MTUK1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by d123

Exactly right, we should stay in the EU for cheap roaming (if it matters to you), we should leave the EU because you feel it has a lack of democracy, because you feel it controls our lives and makes the majority of our laws (if this happened and it's important to you).

Completely separate issues and conclusions.

We shouldn't be mixing the problems and then coming to strange conclusions...

I burnt my toast this morning, **** that, it's the EU's fault, we need to leave the EU now and then there'll be no more burnt toast!

I can't really take you seriously if you compare burned toast and who runs the country.

[Daveoc64]

IMO we should leave the politics out of this forum. There are better places to discuss that.

Making things political is only going to make this thread...Toast if we're not careful.

[d123]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MTUK1

I can't really take you seriously if you compare burned toast and who runs the country.

I'm not comparing toast to who runs the country, just showing you the ridiculousness of blaming something on someone who is patently not to blame. "Let's leave the EU because they didn't abolish roaming charges" = "let's leave the EU because they didn't prevent burnt toast".

I'm sure you really understand but just don't want to admit it .

[zantarous]

I just called EE to find out what my options were for roaming in Thailand while they did some okay call boosters their data was just unbelievable:

25MB for 24 hours at £15
35MB for 24 hours at I think £25

They then had 50Mb for 7 days and 100MB at prices that are not even worth considering.

[Gigabit]

We just need wavejock to complete this thread.

I really thought this forum was on the up. I guess I was wrong.

*sigh*

[plymouthbloke1974]

Quote:

Originally Posted by darkjedimaster

For the BIB, I went onto the Vodafone website and selected Turkey as the country that I was visiting, Vodafone then stated that Turkey was in their Eurozone 2 and was included in the list of countries that can be seen here

Yes, oddly enough, Vodafone count Turkey as a EuroTraveller country. KERRRRRCHING!

[Mark C]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zantarous

I just called EE to find out what my options were for roaming in Thailand while they did some okay call boosters their data was just unbelievable:

25MB for 24 hours at £15
35MB for 24 hours at I think £25

Data outside the EU just takes the piss, regardless of network, it's a non starter.

Bizarre really, because you're paying for essentially a local internet connection albeit with a VPN tunnel back home. A foreign hotel doesn't charge you 100 times more than it would a local for WiFi access.

What would be more useful is or the EU and governments to take up more realistic and proportionate charges for worldwide roaming by EU based telcos

But it's all just one huge worldwide obscene cartel, with backhanders abounding,

[natbike]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zantarous

I just called EE to find out what my options were for roaming in Thailand while they did some okay call boosters their data was just unbelievable:

25MB for 24 hours at £15
35MB for 24 hours at I think £25

They then had 50Mb for 7 days and 100MB at prices that are not even worth considering.

Don't do it! You really can pick up a local SIM with no effort when you land and get all that for a pittance!

[zantarous]

That is exactly what I am planning on doing.

[noise747]

I wonder how many MEP's and Eurocrats have shares in mobile phone networks?

Too many funny handshakes I think.

[jonmorris]

There will have been immense pressure on Governments to try and stop/delay/water down what was going to cost the networks a small fortune. However, the EC should have stood firm.

But the networks should never EVER have been allowed to charge what they did from the outset, and then get used to it, or even come to rely on it. Interestingly, when GSM roaming started around 1991, users weren't charged rip off rates and generally paid the standard tariff for that country. Data was charged the normal call charges when it was based on dial-up, before GPRS existed.

At some stage, it was considered confusing and the classic word 'simplification' allowed networks to bring in flat rate charges so nobody could ever be confused, but rather pay inflated charges everywhere instead.

The huge amount of money charged in recent years also meant that Governments obviously realised they could ask for even more money in licenses, to help pay off their own debts, and guess who had to pay for all of this?

Of course; us.

The 'permission' to allow networks to make eye-watering amounts of money charging thousands of times more for data in the EU, and getting away with it, obviously meant the same networks had no qualms about charging even more outside the EU. That's even more obscene.

When networks are ever called out for their ridiculous charges leading to huge bills, their solution is to write off charges as a goodwill gesture so as to avoid anyone ever taking legal action to challenge the costs.

I've always thought (and written) that it was ludicrous that mobile phone operators could think it was acceptable to have warnings on mobiles about excessive charges, rather than simply charge fairer rates and make a profit in a more honest way.

Some networks now have daily fees to allow access to your standard bundle (and some have it free, such as Three) so perhaps the EU could at least have pushed for that - with a maximum fee. £1-3 a day, with further discounts for a week or month, would seem fair. Note, I mean access to your normal calls/texts/data, not some pathetic bundle of 25MB for 30 days that runs out in 5 minutes.

Scrapping the roaming fees altogether obviously sounds better, but it was/is obvious that the current tariffs/rates would have to go up to offset the revenue loss.

Was it this year or last year that saw the last of the sliding scale price capping on EU roaming? Although a huge improvement on where things were five years ago, there's still lots more to do.

[japaul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by noise747

I wonder how many MEP's and Eurocrats have shares in mobile phone networks?

Too many funny handshakes I think.

From what has happened, you'd have to assume none of them hold any shares in mobile networks.

The Eurocrats (the Commission) proposed and drafted the legislation but they don't have the power to make any laws. The draft was approved by MEPs but that still doesn't make it law unless it's approved by the Council of the EU who rejected it. The Council is not some fixed body but are really just the relevant ministers from each member state.

So, in essence the Eurocrats and MEPs tried to get the legislation through but it has been blocked by the national governments of the member states. Of course a number of the national governments do indeed hold shares in the phone networks e.g Orange in France and DT in Germany.