New roaming rule to hit exorbitant phone bills

[whatmeworry]

New roaming rule to hit exorbitant phone bills

 

[Must...Fly!]

Re: New roaming rule to hit exorbitant phone bills Read more: http://www.theage.com.

3 already do this. (did...not sure if Vodafone to)

 

[simongr]

Re: New roaming rule to hit exorbitant phone bills Read more: http://www.theage.com.

I get an sms from Vodafone when I am overseas explaining about the cost of data.

What would be more useful would be better overseas contracts that would mean data was the same(ish) price as at home. This legislation is about as useful to an international traveller as bottled air (unless you are a scuba diver then bottled air is really quite useful).

 

[Pukka]

I just buy a pay as you go simcard in whichever country I'm in. Works really well all you need is an unlocked (preferably triband) phone. I was on London 2 weeks ago and bought a sim from car phone warehouse for £10 the rate to call Australia was 1p per minute landlines. & 14p per minute to mobiles. Now if I'd used my regular Telstra sim ......!!!!

 

[lovestotravel]

More nannying/controls by the Government

Good times..........

 

[Pukka]

To be fair to the government ( of which I am no fan of) I've heard some stories of kids running up bills of thousands of dollars while using facebook overseas and the parents get lumbered with the bill. I think the worst was just under $20K.

So I think some sort of regulation is in order even if it's just a courtesy call to say your last five photos you uploaded to Facebook cost you $200 by the way

 

[SeaWolf]

More nannying/controls by the Government

If the telco industry could be trusted to control themselves and be responsible then it wouldn't be necessary for the government to step in and control them.
Just because a person agrees to be hit over the head with an iron bar doesn't mean it's ethical for the telcos to then do it.

 

[seanpodge]

The fees charged at the moment are a blatant rort. The EU has apprently cracked down on this recently and it's good to see that the Australian government is looking at fixing things up here too.

An interesting quote from this news story:

Ms Adams said when the work began on the report, New Zealanders were facing mobile data charges of around $NZ30 per megabit but the price had now dropped to 50 NZ cents.

Odd how the free market seems to work better for consumers sometimes once the government starts sticking its nose in it....

 

[anat0l]

I don't mind that someone has flagged these rates as extortionate, but it infuriates me that part (or a substantial part) of the motivation for such a campaign was due to the same kinds of ignorant consumers who don't read up fully on their services and rates. Bought too many things at the iTunes store? 300 page bill? Don't worry, it's the telco's / Apple's fault, we'll spot you for your incompetence. Didn't know that sending all those photos would rack up a huge bill? Don't worry, complain loud enough and you'll get it for free.

Odd how the free market seems to work better for consumers sometimes once the government starts sticking its nose in it....

Suffice to say that when the government sticks its nose in, you can barely call it a "free market", let alone the epitome of capitalism.

But whatever - at least we have cheaper rates Trans-Tasman. That's all that matters, not all this other regulatory BS and so forth.

 

[harvyk]

quite frankly there is no reason why international roaming should cost anywhere near what it does. It's pure rip offs by the telcos. Considering I can skype back to AU for free, well that's using the exact same cables amd infrastructure to get my voice back to AU as mobile roaming would use, the mobile infrastructure would already exist for the people of that country to use, quite frankly there is no excuse for this blatent rip off.

For the record I don't consider it gov't nannying when they take on companies who have zero respect for their customers.

 

[oz_mark]

quite frankly there is no reason why international roaming should cost anywhere near what it does. It's pure rip offs by the telcos. Considering I can skype back to AU for free, well that's using the exact same cables amd infrastructure to get my voice back to AU as mobile roaming would use, the mobile infrastructure would already exist for the people of that country to use, quite frankly there is no excuse for this blatent rip off.

The bit that is unnown in all of this, is just what do the overseas providers charge your local provider for your roaming. I have got the impression that those charges can be quite steep. Without knowing that, it is hard to know just where the rip off is occuring.

 

[Pleb Status]

quite frankly there is no reason why international roaming should cost anywhere near what it does. It's pure rip offs by the telcos. Considering I can skype back to AU for free, well that's using the exact same cables amd infrastructure to get my voice back to AU as mobile roaming would use, the mobile infrastructure would already exist for the people of that country to use, quite frankly there is no excuse for this blatent rip off.

For the record I don't consider it gov't nannying when they take on companies who have zero respect for their customers.

With the risk of going a bit off topic, I think you could put foreign exchange surcharges on credit cards in the same class as this. There is not reason for them, but the banks keep putting them up as pure profit earners.

 

[harvyk]

The bit that is unnown in all of this, is just what do the overseas providers charge your local provider for your roaming. I have got the impression that those charges can be quite steep. Without knowing that, it is hard to know just where the rip off is occuring.

true, the actual gouging could be happening anywhere along the chain. Again the cost despite who is charging it is not representitive of the actual cost of providing the service.

Based on some quick calculations I just did, they are on average adding a 2100000% mark up. You can not tell me that it costs them 2100 times the amount to have a person roam onto their infrastructure.

If it was a bank doing this sort of gouging, we'd all be up in arms with pitchforks and torches busting into the ceo's office of the major banks in a heartbeat.

 

[JohnK]

I have no need for data when I am overseas but I do though want to make the ocassional phone call back home.

Roaming charges are exhorbitant. I have been using a sim card in thailand and have a phone card in Singapore. If I happen to be somewhere else then I send an sms back home and the cost is a little more bearable.

Telecommunication companies have been allowed to rort for far too long. About time they are brought back in line.