that's because Switzerland is an EU associated country and part of the Schengen area, with free movement of people, capitals and goods. The UK was offered that status but they rejected it
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Three Becomes Latest UK Mobile Operator to Bring Back EU Roaming Charges
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yep, and in 15-30 years the EU will have straightened out their problems...
Love or hate Brexit, one thing is clear: telecoms, like many other companies, will use any opportunity to exploit consumers and raise prices as high as possible.
As you said this doesn't have to be theoretical, can you evidence what you have said? I am not denying what you have said, but certain words you have used doesn't make it sound impartial
No assumptions. Facts. The AZ vaccine is extremely effective at preventing morbidity, even against the delta variant. In fact, the best immune response actually comes from a mix of AZ and Pfizer in terms of vaccines. Some research indicated the very best immunity is actually from having had Covid itself, though natural immunity comes with risks of course. The fact that, as a public health response, the UK is now opening up almost fully, and death rates have dropped dramatically, with only anti-vaxxers a concern, and an economy that is growing fastest in the G7, tell its own clear story. The fact is, the UK did all of that without EU coordination. As to "figures in the UK" and your shouty block capitals, I agree that our government should have shut the borders quicker, and should have reflected more on the fact that population density in the UK is far higher than in other parts of Europe, with global connectivity far in excess of continental Europe. But hundreds of thousands of people have died across Europe. No country is immune, and no country avoided mistakes. And the story isn't even over yet. Covid is with us forever.
Subsidizing cellular roaming on an island nation seems exceptionally regressive.
Roaming is great for middle to upper class people who travel, but is worthless to the poor in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jan/16/third-britons-cannot-afford-holiday-ons-poverty
Roaming is great for middle to upper class people who travel, but is worthless to the poor in the UK. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/jan/16/third-britons-cannot-afford-holiday-ons-poverty
the EU is not going to break up, unless something very unexpected happens. Younger generations feel more and more European and can't even imagine a future without the EU. 80% of the people in the UK under 25 voted remain
I’m not a Brit, but I do have a British SIM. And SIMs from the US, Russia, Australia, Japan, and about 5 others. You’re right — it’s a huge pain the butt and is completely ridiculous.
Every time I land to do business in a different country, there’s a song a dance I go through to reactivate/top up the relevant SIM, change SIMs, and notify relevant people (because some of my contacts still use SMS and for some ungodly reason Apple still after all this time hasn’t ironed all of the iMessage kinks out of changing SIMs so it causes chaos there too).
For me, it’s a frequent but moderate annoyance, but most average travelers don’t know the hoops and end up getting rammed by their greedy telecoms with ridiculous and extortionate roaming fees for something that we all know costs the telecom nearly nothing.
I'm sorry, but you are barely scratching the surface and you are not looking at the big picture.
I have a business in three countries, yet I am based in the EU. The UK is one of my businesses so therefore I need a UK phone number, UK banks, but I am also British by birth and passport, and I own property there too. I've not lived in the UK now for 16 years and I have little intention of returning for the moment. (It's been just over 2 years since I set foot in the UK).
Are you beginning to see the problem?
It's not a slight inconvenience.
My business in the UK is being deliberately targeted by now uncontrolled telecoms operators and the regulations don't care one bit. They will however be pocketing quite a bit as a result.
To access my UK bank accounts, I need a UK mobile. I am now going to be cut off as the maximum roaming period from Three is 2 months. That expires on the 17th of September. How do I now access my money?
My UK number will be effectively suspended until I return to the UK so how will my clients call me?
Still not getting it?
The beauty of the EU is the fact that all the above was allowed and managed accordingly. I didn't need separate business papers to work in the UK (I do now), I didn't need to worry about roaming fees and I could have my UK mobile number indefinitely roaming (that's now all gone), and I had the freedom to live wherever the heck I wanted in the UK without any judgement, restrictions or anything else that would impede me and my work.
Again, all gone. Just shipping an item from the UK to clients has become a joke.
Brexit is BS and once again for the umpteenth time, it's affecting millions negatively. Just because you have an obtuse view of this due to the fact you've never lived abroad, or don't have multiple businesses in multiple countries or work across the EU and UK, you just simply don't see it.
I am at the point now that I am considering selling all my assets, and shutting down all my UK business operations and taking that elsewhere. It's a total betrayal of my country against me and many millions of Britons and frankly, as I mentioned earlier, I am (as are many other people like me), considering completely turning our backs to the UK following this disgrace.
But you have your little blue passport. I hope it was worth it.
I agree to an extent. I imagine there’ll be a big push for it in the late 20s regardless, and a lot can happen between now and then. I think it more likely that we’ll rejoin the single market if things get bad enough. An awful lot will depend on how things shake out in the US over the coming years.
This has gone a long way off piste from moaning about roaming charges lol, think I should leave it there 🙂
That article is toffee. Probably 90% of the guests who stay at my wife's hotel are working class. All glued to their phones.
I suppose they might actually lap up some culture, or more probably ask for wifi.
The Co-Op will let you bank with just your email. While I have a mobile, the signal is about a hour from here.
Well to be fair, if your economy shrinks the most, it's bound to grow faster as well.
Infections per capita in the UK are by far the highest in Europe right now and have been for months, hospitalizations in the UK are on the rise as well. Those numbers seem to tell a totally different story as to what you are saying. And those are facts, and current figures have literally nothing to do with closing borders quicker.
Last edited:
I still don't understand how they manage it. My wee brother and his girl have never worked but manage two holidays a year. This isn't uncommon.
As a working-class, former Guardian-reader, I can tell you that the Guardian understands the working classes to the same extent I understand subatomic physics.
You are being partial and using facts from different time periods. Yes, we certainly had a terrible pandemic in terms of the death rate. Partially due to the UK having a 'flu-based pandemic plan and an early resistance to lockdown, which is a difficult thing to sell to the liberty-loving British population. Once we saw rising deaths, that changed things and the UK was generally cooperative about having its freedoms taken away (for perspective, the pubs didn't even close during World War 2, but that's what happened with Covid).
We are an island, indeed, but we have much higher population density across the UK than most of Europe, as well as significant global connectivity. France has the same population as the UK, for example, but twice the land. There is also some evidence, for example, that in some countries such as Germany, the virus spread among the young first, providing a buffer, until the German miracle started to turn awry and it saw a dramatic rise in deaths. So this is not a linear situation. Whether we should have shut the borders, I do not know. The UK government advisors thought it was a waste of time because the virus was already here. I think that was wrong.
But let's put this in perspective: the UK has lost 134k people to covid, whereas France has lost 115k people. This is not an order of magnitude difference, so let's calm down a bit.
Sure but your "The UK is doing fabulous story" just doesn't hold ground. Fact is that infections per capita is highest by far in Europe (and that includes countries with higher density like The Netherlands) and hospitalizations are e.g. 9 times as high compared to The Netherlands. So you think the UK did so much better because it's out of the EU but you could just as well say the UK did so much worse because it's out of the EU. Both assumptions don't hold any ground.
Correlation is not causation. It is impossible to say whether the Netherlands did better, on some metrics, because it was in the EU. All I am telling you, is that our vaccine programme got off the ground first, our vaccination rate was the fastest in Europe for months, before trailing back a bit for reasons I've mentioned twice now in this thread, and that the UK is not far off from getting back to normal. Plus deaths from covid have plunged significantly. The majority of people affected now are idiots who don't get vaccinated. In this, I am not saying the EU had a total disaster, though it did look that way for some months. I am merely suggesting that voting for Brexit encouraged an independent vaccine program that was of great and lasting benefit to Britons. I've not once said the British response was perfect. This was about the vaccine programme, so argue with me on the topic, not by some expansion into whataboutery.
Also, when you use quote marks ("The UK is doing fabulous story") this suggests that I said those words, which I did not. Don't put words into people's mouths. That is rude and only very bad debaters would do such a thing.
You shared an article from three and a half years before the referendum.
Plus there's little cost for the networks given their size and how integrated the networks are across the globe. It's all synergies and this idea of charging customers now is just a money grab.
Yes they are but they are also very highly tests per capita. Granted some of the smaller EU countries have more tests but France is the next closes in terms of population and they have half the number of tests. Whilst I agree the UK does have a lot of cases (due to the fact there are next to no restrictions) we are testing more people than pretty much any comparably size country
The onus is on you to say what you said is right. But you can’t. That’s all I need to know