Living in a small Country reveals the inefficiency of businesses, of Industries, of Humans.
I feel like I’ve already complained enough about the state of mobile telephone on this blog, particularly where it relates to roaming across countries, which just plain sucks. It’s not just mobile telephony, of course, it’s also public transport, where you have to get special discount cards per country, while we live in a so-called united Europe.
You don’t notice this so much within large countries, like France, Germany, and the US, but you definitely notice it living in the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg. It is therefore an absolute must to a. negotiate higher wages when you start here, to compensate for those costs, and b. the lower taxes compared to the more socialist Netherlands are a nice bonus.
That said, THINGS MUST CHANGE !!! I feel, I cannot say this enough, but there is something very wrong if you go from an all-you-can-eat mobile internet contract for €27 – €50 per month, to paying something like €1 – €5 per MB of data as soon as you move 2 metres (6 feet) across the border!
I’m as against big corporations and government as the next guy, but in this case I favour more consolidation amongst mobile operators and public transport companies (even so, just because I have a T-mobile account in the Netherlands, doesn’t mean that I pay any decreased roaming fees in T-Mobile’s birth-country, Germany, no sir!).
Rather than consolidation, I am even more in favour of large networks infrastructures that are rented out at the same price to companies in different countries, which in turn act as nothing but a language interface for those services (at a minor surcharge). I think this is actually already happening, but the minor surcharge is really abused to the max. in most cases.
Whatever the case, Business-travel in Europe sucks (even more so globally, of course), and I feel that the only way to get around it now is to make more money (as if travelling was a luxury!?) or never travel at all, both of which are, to say the least, inefficient solutions to what should be a simple problem to solve. … as long as, of course, people of all nations get their heads out of their respective a##es (That’s right, I said a## on Tech IT Easy).
End rant,
Vincent
(Apologies for all the swearing. That’s really not like me.)
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Tags: public transport, sorry, swearing
Clusters, Economics, Globalization, Telecommunications, Travel, banking, law
I think there are changes coming this July to roaming charges. I’m translating from a Finnish article, but an today average SMS cost on average 28 cents (10 times of domestic average), but will be capped to 11 cents (only five times bigger!). Calls are capped today at 45 cents, in July 43 cents (and July 2010 to 39 cents). Data will be capped at 1 euro / MB and 50 euro / month.
Granted, those prices are still insane and you can be sure that those are still not counted in to the minutes/sms/MBs in your plans. These changes mean an avearge 60% reduction in consumer prices, so you can be sure that the current prices are a joke against “common EU market”. This whole issue is also a great example of the so called “self-regulation” of an industry.
In my opinion, the (mobile) networks should be owned by a separate entity than who sells services. Just like we have electricity (at least in Nordics) and roads and pretty much every other infrastructure, except telecommunication.
Well, I’d settle if public transportation cards were the same even inside one country.
Well, the prices didn’t go that far down. At least here, intra-EU SMS is now 12 cents, calls 52 cents and data 0,12 cents / 50 kb (or, 2,5 euro per meg). Data is still a rip-off.
As are calls, if you ask me. Is that calls to regular phones or to mobile phones?
Data, I've heard some crazy stories like it costing 13 euro per mb in certain countries. 2.5 seems more fair, but then I have no concept of what a realistic data-consumption is for the average user.
If you could post the source of your information, that would be cool (translate,google.com is your friend for Finnish docs
).
This is my operator's pricing sheet: http://hypno2.mobile.sonera.net/hinnasto/roamin... The categories 1-2 are the EU countries.