This article is from a year ago, and since then, the implementation of this has been delayed until at least 2018 [1]. The good news is that the latest drop (last year) of statutory roaming rates has made roaming within the EU much cheaper if you shop around a bit, but we're sadly still far from the way it is in the U.S. where you don't have to think about the fact that you're 1000 km away.
The whole thing is a sham, and unless it's backed up with a big financial stick, nothing will happen. A month or so back while abroad in the EU, my operator sent a message along the lines of 'Great news! Data roaming is free in the EU! We are AWESOME! Please note that this does not include email or internet access, and is restricted to web access. To our site."
No, this is mobile operator hate, and your reading comprehension sucks - see my comment directly above. That document describes an alternate reality - I sure as hell don't get those tariffs from Telefonica.
You were complaining about lacking enforcement by the EU in your other comment. Firstly this is misplaced in this case - there is no central EU telecom regulator so it is up to the national member states to enforce it.
Secondly the quoted prices accurately describe reality once a cross-border element comes in - the EU cannot regulate your home market; for this reason, SMS are cheaper for me when I'm abroad then when I'm home as well.
If it is true that the tariffs do not apply for you, then just write an email to your telecom regulator, for example Spain would be http://www.cnmc.es/
And I still don't agree with the fact that it opens the market. AFAIK operators can still add conditions like the phone as to be used primarily in country X, which means you can't just get an abo in country X and use it mostly in country Y.
>where you don't have to think about the fact that you're 1000 km away.
We pay for that through increased rates due to covering such a huge landmass, most of which is sparsely populated. Wyoming alone is larger than England and has only 600,000 people.
I wonder if this roaming agreement is being pushed back because of the massive costs it would incur. Your cheap Parisian data plan isn't going to cheap on a Greek island. Its foolish to expect to pay the same rate. I can't see this not raising rates.
The high rates in the US have nothing to do with area size, it's due to monopolistic services, where you have 1 maybe 2 telcos to choose from in most areas.
Free roaming in Europe has many problems to face, but infrastructure isn't one of them.
T-Mobile has a 4G LTE network that covers ~80% of the US population and about 300 metro areas.
The fact is, most Americans have at least four major carriers to choose from, that offer competitive national plans.
The US wireless infrastructure has been far out in front of the European wireless infrastructure in terms of development.
We had 97% 4G LTE coverage across 320 million people before Europe got to even half coverage.
Further, the US system is accelerating in quality rather than slowing down, thanks to intense competition between AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. I don't see where the EU or Europe as a whole has anything like it.
If you have such a modern infrastructure combined with a healthy market competition like you say, it's incredibly confusing on why your contracts are so expensive then.
Or why do you need projects like Google Fi, which is twice as expensive as similar data plans from Europe.
"We had 97% 4G LTE coverage across 320 million people before Europe got to even half coverage."
That's because you only needed 2 companies to offer 4G and boom, 97% of the population suddenly have 4G. It's called a monopoly.
Europe on the other hand has many, many companies fighting over dozens of countries, buying the rights to be the first 4G network, legally stopping other competitors to join until later on.
>The high rates in the US have nothing to do with area size, it's due to monopolistic services
That's an opinion not a fact. There are four major carriers and several MVNOs in the US. That's competitive with a lot of European markets, where its easier to break into considering the much smaller population/size. Heck, the entirety of Finland's population is about half the Chicagoland metro area.
>Free roaming in Europe has many problems to face, but infrastructure isn't one of them.
I don't see how someone with a budget plan in a highly dense country is going to be entitled to have the same economics roaming in countries with low desnity where the cost, per sq kilometer, for 3G/4G service is much, much higher.
A lot of the cost for US service is making sure people out in the boonies have service as well. That comes at a higher cost than some of the more ultra dense European markets. Its subsidised nation-wide, which makes sense, but if you have a cheap Finnish plan because your tiny country is easy to wire up, well, don't expect those rates in rural Bulgaria or on a Greek island.
> That's competitive with a lot of European markets, where its easier to break into considering the much smaller population/size.
Citation needed. A lot of the market entry barriers are political/regulatory. Also smaller populations make for smaller scales of economy. These together don't make it any easier to break into a smaller market. The total capital outlay may be smaller in a smaller market, but that does not mean it will be easier or more profitable.
The US market is not very competitive and the carriers do not compete as aggressively as European operators do. There are much more competitive European markets with three carriers that the US with four carriers.
> Heck, the entirety of Finland's population is about half the Chicagoland metro area.
And the point being? Finland is way larger than Chicagoland, has way lower popularion density and has far better and cheaper service.
> I don't see how someone with a budget plan in a highly dense country is going to be entitled to have the same economics roaming in countries with low desnity where the cost, per sq kilometer, for 3G/4G service is much, much higher.
You have gotten your assumptions completely wrong. Finland has the lowest popularion density inthe EU and the fifth largest land mass. Regardless of this Finland has the best and cheapest service in all of EU.
So, the question is more like this: Why shouldn't a user from a low density country be entitled to the same economics roaming in countries with high population density?
> A lot of the cost for US service is making sure people out in the boonies have service as well.
Citation needed.
> That comes at a higher cost than some of the more ultra dense European markets. Its subsidised nation-wide, which makes sense, but if you have a cheap Finnish plan because your tiny country is easy to wire up, well, don't expect those rates in rural Bulgaria or on a Greek island.
Are there economic benefits to a single addressable market of 300M people, which is made possible by the large geographical area of the US? Another comparison point is Canada, which has a large physical area with about 10% of the US population.
There are substantial areas in Wyoming where ATT and Verizon don't even have voice coverage (I guess neither do Sprint or TMobile, but I didn't check those 2). ATT maps pretty much the entire coverage of Wyoming as third party.
I think it is impossible to calculate with publicly available data, but the interesting statistics would compare the networks directly in terms of infrastructure costs for new coverage (perhaps divided over the number of new customers in that coverage, but coverage has, uh, network effects) and infrastructure costs being spent on enhancing service levels in already covered areas.
More: Presumably, higher costs to add coverage to new people would indicate more complete coverage. The presumption being that a business is investing in the more profitable coverages first, so the later areas have a higher cost per customer accessed.
There is no "Parisian" data plan, there is a French data plan, which already includes lots of sparsely populated areas in France - which might be covered with 4G or not. And this law doesn't force anybody to cover all Greek islands with 4G.
The banning of roaming charges are repeatedly being proposed in the EU, and later the proposal is canceled once all the good PR has been gained for now. See this two year old op-ed from (then Member of European Parliament) Christian Engström, which explains the procedure (in Swedish): https://www.aftonbladet.se/debatt/article16919673.ab
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31737635