mikeinnc wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 6:04am:


Some slight corrections and additions

Ofcom is doing something, however slowly, as it is part of the European Regulators Group that has been looking into this for some time.

It is the EU Commissioner Ms Reding that is moving this at the moment, not the European Parliament. And it is in progress, not finished.

Some networks have done something about cutting roaming charges for voice calls, particularly 3 of the Irish networks for roaming in the UK. This is after negotiations with ComReg the Irish regulator. The recent EU presidency announcements seem to be driven by the Irish as well. The head of 3 Ireland has referred to roaming charges as unfair; was this a wise career move?
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But as far as data roaming charges go, that amount is simply ridiculous, especially when options are available with other companies at a minuscule fraction of that price.

What that gentleman needed was 2 products - the Onspeed accelerator/compression proxy that cuts bandwidth consumption by typically 4 or 5 times - and a Wind SIM from Italy, with 200 MB (while roaming, or 1GB in Italy) for €20 a month

Don't forget that some mobile networks have been under investigation for alleged anti-competitive practice and overcharging in respect of roaming charges. These cases are not closed.

I wasn't so much defending Ofcom, as suggesting that other bodies (who have been equally slagged off in the past) are acting, and correcting the assertion that the European Parliament deserve the credit rather than the Commissioner backed up by the ERG's information.



By the way, I notice that some of the quotes are attributed to Mike not me

It was only in the last few years that mobile companies have started offering tariffs for cross network inclusive minutes so we can call people on a different UK mobile without incurring excessive charges.  It's taken long enough to get reasonably priced calls just because people use a different mobile network in this country.

I use O2's inclusive texts, and I get 100 texts a month on one of my contracts, and I only use about 10 or so of them, however if I use those texts abroad, then instead of paying for them, it uses 4 of my inclusive texts to send 1 text from Spain to the UK.  I don't know how many other countries it covers, but I thought it was a good idea to send a few texts from Spain, and not pay for them (remember I do take up offers with 12 months free line rental!!)

Other mobile companies that normally offer inclusive texts would make a charge for this, rather than simply use up inclusive texts faster.