News: Roaming fees in Europe - a thing of the past?

Roaming in Europe

The Telegraph reported last week that the EU is planning to drop Roaming charges for European mobile phone customers as soon as 1 July 2014. The plans were originally brought to life by Dutch politician Neelie Kroes of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. Where the USA's 300 million citizens are provided by 4 carriers, in Europe there are way over 100, not counting small providers that buy into big carriers' networks and offer their own tariffs.

The underlying problems are that even with the open physical borders, the digital borders are sometimes higher than ever. If you are ever considering traveling through Europe, prepare for a painful journey for your phone. You might as well turn on Airplane mode and use it to take pictures only or prepare for a huge bill, and I mean huge, >1000 Euro. If you are unfamiliar with European networks and carriers, don't even try to understand what is going on there. It is bureaucracy at its finest.

Germany compared to its neighbours

For instance, with my German SIM card, while in Germany, I pay 9 cents per minute to call any German mobile or landline number nationwide. I also pay 9 cents per minute into most other European countries and North America. But if I travel 1 mile into the Netherlands, our direct neighbour, I would pay 34 cents to call Germany and 9 cents per minute for incoming calls. Paying for incoming calls is absolutely not customary in Europe, as long as you are in your home country. Let's say, I call somebody for 10 minutes, then receive an incoming call for another 10 minutes. While in Germany, these calls would cost me 90 cents, just one mile to the west and suddenly these calls cost me 4.30 Euro. That is nearly five times the price of the original calls and absolutely unacceptable. Before a law to limit these rates passed in 2011, it would have been even more expensive.

The other side of the medallion is that with 2011's new Roaming law, a price limit for SMS while Roaming of 11 cents / text was introduced. This came as a surprise for many Germans, who still paid 19 cents for texts from Germany to Germany at the time, meaning it would now be cheaper for them to send SMS from their vacation spots than from home.

While some carriers have multinational operations going, every country is treated differently and as an EU citizen, you are limited to what your country's carriers have to offer for you. As a German citizen, sometimes that makes me weep and look over the border to Austria jealously. Germany and Austria are culturally similar, they speak the same language, watch the same TV networks, have similar average household incomes, etc.
Still, how come, in Austria, T-Mobile (Deutsche Telekom) offers a pay-as-you-go tariff of 1000 minutes, 1000 SMS and 1000 MB of Internet traffic for 10 Euro a month, no contract, no obligations, where in Germany the same tariff (while it does not technically exist) would cost you somewhat around 30 Euro.
But it does not exist. In Germany, we have this ridiculous practice of fake Internet "flatrates". The term, when coined, used to mean, you could use it however much you please. These days, it has been bastardized to mean use as much as the carrier pleases. An SMS flatrate almost always comes with a "fair use cap", meaning, you get 3000 SMS per month. Even on expensive contracts of 30-40 Euro / month, you are lucky to get 500 MB of Internet traffic, before they slow you down to 64kbit/sec. 
What good is unlimited Internet, when you are limited to 64kbit/sec? The carriers build up these awesome HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE networks, only to have you burn through your allowance in a matter of seconds and then limiting you to 90s dial-up modem speeds.

What does this new proposal mean and how does it affect me?

With the removal of all Roaming costs, calling your loved ones from your holiday will cost the same as calling them from home. You always have the same tariff, no matter where you currently are.
This is great for the two weeks a year, you want to enjoy lying on the Beach of Skiing in the Alps. This might cut your mobile costs for the entire year in half, but that is not all.
Travelling for business is much more convenient as your boss will not strangle you, once you come back, as your bill will be pretty much the same as if you were sitting at your desk.
And not only does this affect texting and calling, it also affects data, the most important and most expensive part of our system.

But this also means, no one is stopping me from getting a cheap Austrian SIM card and using it in Germany or The Netherlands or wherever, just to ditch the ridiculously expensive domestic data charges. However, any included minutes and SMS go to waste, the minutes and texts on said Austrian card are only good for calling Austria.

So, what's next in line?

Obviously, when ditching the digital borders for a united european mobile network, there are 2 more things to come:
- A regulation that will force carriers to charge the same price for a call to any other European number.
- A European country code to actually make it one network.

Said country code could offer a unified phone number structuring system and effectively, phone numbers might even become shorter than they are now. But more on that structuring issue on another day...

I believe this entire plan is long overdue. So many laws and regulations apply Europe-wide these days and still the communication companies try and overcharge, where they can, while offering great rates in other countries. I mean "Shit, T-Mobile, get it together!". You are the Deutsche Telekom, but still you offer the worst service in Germany and (at least on paper) much greater service in other countries like Austria or the USA. Why is that?

In general, I think this is a great step forward for a unified Europe and in the long run, all mobile users will profit from this proposal, as in the end, everybody will be able to switch to the cheapest carrier, putting real pressure on the more expensive ones. Having the networks finally grow faster is another important benefit from this and the customer has already won some important privileges.