News EC announces net neutrality rules, abolishes roaming charges

And call charges/tariffs will just go up to compensate! Swings and roundabouts

 

I don't think they will go up. Three's 'Feel At Home' was just the tip of the iceberg as they were the only ones to get out ahead of this and take advantage as a lot of people switched to Three specifically for that feature.

It also means that a UK network/operator (and vice versa) can compete right across Europe, massively expanding their market without extra roaming charges. For example, without roaming charges if you can get the same services from a German network operator for half the price of a UK one, why not unlock your phone (if required) and just use their sim instead? The only difference will be the length of phone number but that is due to be standardised at some point too.

 

Wonder how this will work with unlimited free calls/sms plans.

 

Our elected MEPs may have voted for net neutrality rules but sadly the unelected European Council have all but re-written the text.. https://edri.org/compromising-on-net-neutrality/

In fact Joe McNamee, Executive Director of European Digital Rights said...

“What is the point of agreeing to adopt legislation that makes the legal situation less clear than it was before? Now we have text which could mean almost anything – we did not need more legal uncertainty,”

They have failed to define what is "necessary" what are "specialised services" and they haven't defined what a “legal obligation” for blocking/filtering might be. I think this says it better than I could "Now that our political “leaders” have decided that they cannot make a decision, we must wait for unelected judges and regulators to do the hard work."

 

This combined with single month contracts was a winner when I came over last month from Aus!

 

I don't travel much, but good to know roaming charges will be a thing of the past, too many stories of people running up stupidly high bills. The net neutrality ruling is a bit less clear.