Quote:

Roger Steare, a consultant, from Sevenoaks, Kent, returned from a business trip to face a huge bill from Orange. “I took my laptop abroad with my 3G card. I have a special bundle in the UK where I pay £45 a month for 400 megabytes. “When I went to France and Germany, I was billed £655.70 for 81.96 megabytes,” he said. “I trusted any premium would be reasonable, but I don’t think paying nearly 100 times what I am paying in the UK is fair and reasonable.”

That's the headline from a story in today's London 'Times' about the absolute rip-off charges associated with mobile phone rates when European subscribers are in another European country than their own. It could just as easily be the headline about calls to 0870, 0845 and all the other rip-off NGN numbers in the UK. Look at what Orange and the other mobile companies charge for NGN and 'free' calls! "Fair and reasonable" doesn't come into the equation.

It's guaranteed that Ofcom would never have done anything at all about this - it took the European parliament to end the suffering. Of course, the telephone companies will bleat and scream and end up being dragged kicking to regulation in favour of the consumer. Maybe, just maybe, instead of continuing to bang one's head against the brick wall that is Ofcom, it would make more sense to bypass them and attempt a more effective approach through European regulation?

It's surely worth a try!  :)

mikeinnc wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 5:04am:

It's guaranteed that Ofcom would never have done anything at all about this - it took the European parliament to end the suffering. Of course, the telephone companies will bleat and scream and end up being dragged kicking to regulation in favour of the consumer. Maybe, just maybe, instead of continuing to bang one's head against the brick wall that is Ofcom, it would make more sense to bypass them and attempt a more effective approach through European regulation?

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?
__

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

andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 12:29pm:

mikeinnc wrote on Mar 29th, 2006 at 5:04am: It's guaranteed that Ofcom would never have done anything at all about this - ...  the telephone companies will bleat and scream and end up being dragged kicking to regulation in favour of the consumer. Maybe ... it would make more sense to bypass [Ofcom] and attempt a more effective approach through European regulation? Ofcom is doing something, however slowly, as it is part of the European Regulators Group that has been looking into this for some time.

Please clarify exactly what Ofcom is doing?
Is it actually doing anything other than merely "looking into this"?


andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 12:29pm:

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 hardly relevant to the criticism of Ofcom - and of the UK telephone providers.
If anything, it actually adds to the criticism of Ofcom and UK providers: if the Irish authorities and providers can do something, why can't the UK?


andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 12:29pm:

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 ...

And, for that, they are to be congratulated - again, it just highlights how ineffective the UK regime is!
:'(

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

andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 1:35pm:

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.

Accepted.


andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 1:35pm:

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.

Agreed.


andy9 wrote on Mar 29^th, 2006 at 1:35pm:

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

Apologies - I copied & pasted the wrong bits!
Now corrected in original post.  Thanks for pointing it out.

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.