I still don't get why it has to be this way - why can't carriers
just sent you a txt as soon as you exceed your monthly consumption
by, say, 50 Euro? I know so many people that got stung by a huge
data roaming bill, some of them don't want to touch mobile data
ever again as a result. Very short term thinking in the carrier's
end.
@jeroen020: I believe
your home carrier can receive the information of your data traffic
days or even weeks afterwards. It won't help much at that
point.
The main problem is that data roaming is this seriously
expensive. It's bringing nice revenues from a few companies to a
few companies. As far as I know, regular consumers don't usually
when use data when travelling abroad.
The whole of EU suffers because of this, but a couple of large
telcos make some nice profits. Even if EU commission puts an end to
this between EU countries, the problem remains for those who are
travelling from Asia and US or vice versa.
@terolehtt - as more
consumers are upsold to get a data plan, often promoted as 'all you
can eat', on top of their voice & messaging plans, they get
used to e-mail, sending pictures, browsing the web and even
watching online video's on their phone and/or laptop using WAN.
It's these people that risk being ripped off (or at least absurdly
billed) and whose trust and interest in mobile access to the
internet can be damaged so much so easily.
As for interoperability on billing, somebody in the value chain
will notice that somebody is spending a lot on roaming (if not the
home carrier, then at least the carrier with whom the carrier is
roaming). In times like these, a home carrier hiding behind a
statement that you 'can't get the information from the roaming
carrier' is totally artificial, and only serves political/business
profit, there is no valid functional or technical reason for this
anymore. (Imagine, these companies are all about selling you
network capacity for realtime communication, and among themselves
need more time than a letter did in the 19th Century to send a
charge to the other party?)
Anyway, as you say, it's at least good that the EU is stepping
in, but it is a disgrace that the telco industry did not
self-regulate and, in the case of intercontinental roaming, still
make no effort in self-regulation & consumer protection.
4 comments so far
Luckily it's mostly been within our home Wi-Fi for the last couple of days...
3 months, 2 weeks ago by jyri.
I still don't get why it has to be this way - why can't carriers just sent you a txt as soon as you exceed your monthly consumption by, say, 50 Euro? I know so many people that got stung by a huge data roaming bill, some of them don't want to touch mobile data ever again as a result. Very short term thinking in the carrier's end.
3 months, 2 weeks ago by jeroen020.
@jeroen020: I believe your home carrier can receive the information of your data traffic days or even weeks afterwards. It won't help much at that point.
The main problem is that data roaming is this seriously expensive. It's bringing nice revenues from a few companies to a few companies. As far as I know, regular consumers don't usually when use data when travelling abroad.
The whole of EU suffers because of this, but a couple of large telcos make some nice profits. Even if EU commission puts an end to this between EU countries, the problem remains for those who are travelling from Asia and US or vice versa.
3 months, 2 weeks ago by terolehtt.
@terolehtt - as more consumers are upsold to get a data plan, often promoted as 'all you can eat', on top of their voice & messaging plans, they get used to e-mail, sending pictures, browsing the web and even watching online video's on their phone and/or laptop using WAN. It's these people that risk being ripped off (or at least absurdly billed) and whose trust and interest in mobile access to the internet can be damaged so much so easily.
As for interoperability on billing, somebody in the value chain will notice that somebody is spending a lot on roaming (if not the home carrier, then at least the carrier with whom the carrier is roaming). In times like these, a home carrier hiding behind a statement that you 'can't get the information from the roaming carrier' is totally artificial, and only serves political/business profit, there is no valid functional or technical reason for this anymore. (Imagine, these companies are all about selling you network capacity for realtime communication, and among themselves need more time than a letter did in the 19th Century to send a charge to the other party?)
Anyway, as you say, it's at least good that the EU is stepping in, but it is a disgrace that the telco industry did not self-regulate and, in the case of intercontinental roaming, still make no effort in self-regulation & consumer protection.
3 months, 2 weeks ago by jeroen020.