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Three Becomes Latest UK Mobile Operator to Bring Back EU Roaming Charges
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I presented by opinions and the facts as I see them in good faith. By all means question my opinion, and by all means provide me with counter-facts, but don't expect me to provide footnotes. I am delighted that you have not presented anything which contradicts the facts I have laid out. At present, I am confident in the veracity of my claims. The arrogance of saying "the onus is on me" is very lazy. You want me to be wrong, but won't bother to check the facts for yourself, for your own independent sense of enquiry, instead relying, weirdly, on me to tell you whether I am right or wrong. Well either I can be your trusted source or I cannot, but I cannot be both things.
"BY FAR the worst" they said! You just know with someone who uses block capitals to make an emphatic point, they are probably wrong. Facts don't need to be shouted, but presented.
I don't see this as anything to do with Brexit, other than using it as an excuse to increase charges.
Three currently allow roaming in 71 countries (more countries outside the EU than in it). However whilst re-introducing roaming charges in the EU at £2 per day, more or less the rest of the world (which was previously included in roaming, but NOT because of EU regulations) will be £5 per day.
They (and other networks) were never under any obligation to allow free roaming in, e.g. the USA, and as such they have been free to re-introduce roaming charges to non-EU countries at any time. The fact that they decided to re-introduce them post Brexit is a convenient smokescreen for people to blame Brexit for something that has nothing to do with Brexit.
Remember - they all said they had no plans on bringing back EU roaming charges post Brexit, and here they are, bringing them back for both EU and non-EU countries.
Three currently allow roaming in 71 countries (more countries outside the EU than in it). However whilst re-introducing roaming charges in the EU at £2 per day, more or less the rest of the world (which was previously included in roaming, but NOT because of EU regulations) will be £5 per day.
They (and other networks) were never under any obligation to allow free roaming in, e.g. the USA, and as such they have been free to re-introduce roaming charges to non-EU countries at any time. The fact that they decided to re-introduce them post Brexit is a convenient smokescreen for people to blame Brexit for something that has nothing to do with Brexit.
Remember - they all said they had no plans on bringing back EU roaming charges post Brexit, and here they are, bringing them back for both EU and non-EU countries.
By that logic, my name is Tim Cook, I am Apple’s CEO. Prove me wrong
Absolutely. Outside the EU, the UK can have its own roaming policy (there are limits already, but that can be extended), but there is nothing compelling UK networks to introduce roaming fees. It's just an excuse to make more money. As I said in my original post, the networks have spent billions of pounds on 5G and other bandwidth licenses, and need to recoup that and will do anything to make more money. Brexit was the excuse they needed to introduce these extra charges. I suspect the UK gov will respond to this in time. The UK can introduce any policy it wants in relation to roaming, including a global roaming policy if it wants, not limited just to the EU.
You are being really daft. I know you think you've hit on some wonderful logical get-out clause for not doing the research and not using your brain and your comprehension skills, but you haven't. Assuming you really do live on Morville Street in London, and not in Cupertino, California, then I would say that you are highly unlikely to be Tim Cook. See, I did a little research. Not difficult. I didn't ask you to prove you are Tim Cook.
I could be lying. Just like you
I could be lying. Just like you. What you found isn’t evidence
No, you did that to make yourself feel better. It's funny how people have to make stuff up in order to try to win an argument. Nice try!
Talking out of your hat again.
Absolutely the UK could introduce any policy it wants, but those policies would have no effect whatsoever on companies outside the UK, who would continue to charge the UK based companies exorbitant wholesale rates.
Eurotariff regulates consumer facing AND wholesale (operator to operator) roaming pricing in the EU, crucially meaning that operators are still guaranteed a margin on roaming in virtually all cases. The only possible exception that I know of being all you can eat data plans, which have to be honoured up to a statutory fair use limit even though the wholesale price is capped at €3/Gb.
-jp
The UK can impose any rules it wants to on any company that wishes to serve UK consumers. Besides, most of the major networks in Europe are connected. Many have significant UK presence (albeit under different brands) and many European networks are owned or co-owned by UK-based companies. If the UK government imposed limits on roaming charges, relative to wholesale or other interconnect fees internationally, then it could do so. Nothing you say would stop that. There is no evidence that EU mobile companies are charging "exorbitant" fees to UK mobile companies: as I said, most of them belong to the same telecoms parent groups! Whether the UK gov will bother is quite another matter. Most people would use WiFi abroad anyway.
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The companies you would need to regulate for such a regulation to work are not serving UK consumers. They're providing wholesale services (outside of the UK) to UK based companies.
Whether a non-UK based business operates under the same logo or has the same parent company as a UK based business makes absolutely no difference: The UK can only regulate companies operating in the UK.
There is strong circumstantial evidence that EU companies are indeed charging higher fees to UK companies when you consider that UK companies initially said they wouldn't raise their prices and now are. Also, why would EU companies not charge higher wholesale rates to UK companies now that the regulation previously governing that has fallen away?
The stuff you're coming out with beggars belief.
-jp
Quotation marks suggest you didn't say it but you're constantly implying it. And to use your same words, it's impossible to say the UK did better because it wasn't in the EU.
Anyway, this has gone off topic for long enough.
That's deaths per capita, something you can't really compare as countries measure this differently (e.g. Belgium counted everything that "could be COVID", without testing it to be sure). I was talking about current infection levels.
Beggars belief? A bit strong that. Everything I said was perfectly plausible! You want to calm down, jock.
It's not like you have any evidence that the interconnect fees have gone up, which makes little sense when so many of the networks across the UK and Europe are owned by the same parent group! They won't push those fees up to such an extent that their UK brands have to push up end user pricing to a point where this raises consumer complaints and potential new legislation. You must also acknowledge that UK companies own or have investments in many European networks.
When you say circumstantial, you mean you've got no proof. What I do have proof of though, working in the mobile industry, is that the networks are looking for whatever way they can to claw back the billions of pounds spent on acquiring 4G and 5G licenses. Roaming was a perfect opportunity, and doesn't have to be related to interconnect fees whatsoever. Or does that beggar belief? You are easily beggared!
You don't think it is possible that the UK government says to Vodafone, do not charge more than 10% on top of wholesale prices? You think a cap is some impossibility to the UK government? Ultimately, where a UK end user is charged in the UK, the UK government can impose its will. Whether it will do is another matter.
Infection levels are also different depending on the extent of testing in any given region. Not having much luck are you?
It's not impossible! The UK did better because, unlike the 27 EU member states, the UK took to its own vaccine policy! Which worked better and quicker! My goodness, what more proof do you need??
But 1. that has nothing to do with being in or out the EU as EU member states can decide that themselves. And the UK was still following EU rules at that point proves that. And 2. They're not doing better really now are they?
One thing the UK did better. They developed their own vaccine while the eu failed at it. For this reason they had larger quantities and earlier and they could plan the vaccination campaign better. The sad part is that this has nothing to do with Brexit and it’s actually related to the fact that brexit is very recent. UK research is top class and will only worsen due to brexit. Just ask UK universities and research centers how much they were in favour of brexit
The AZ vaccine was not developed by the UK government, and AZ received EU funding for that as well. And if we really want to go that route, both Pfizer (BioNTech) and J&J (Janssen in Leiden, NL) were developed in the EU (Germany and The Netherlands respectively).
This has zero to do with Brexit. That is just the excuse. There are zero additional costs to these carriers. It’s just greed.
This will further discourage UK citizens and their money from traveling to the EU and vice-versa. This was a major goal of brexit all along.
What are you on about? Obviously you aren't a travelling Brit as you live somewhere in Europe. So yeah, it's not just a slight inconvenience for you. For you, it's a pain in the groin as you fall under the first type of Brit that I mentioned.
I'm not sure how you took my post into some pro-Brexit thing.