If you’re in the US you’ll know that, whether you’re in New York or Los Angeles, calling your friends in other American cities isn’t that expensive. However, if you live in the UK and travel the short distance to France you’ll suddenly find that calling costs ramp up. As for data connections, well, be prepared to hunt down a WiFi hotspot for cheap data.
However, the Financial Times is today reporting that operators are in talks to create a new European-wide mobile network. The report states that top execs from Telecom Italia, Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and France Telecom are chatting with EU competition chiefs to see if the whole thing is possible. Although it would mean a more united European service with lower roaming charges, there’s likely to be lots of red tape and opposition from regulators.
Link – FT.com
If you’re in New York or anywhere else in AMERICA you are still in the same country. The same if you live in Eastbourne and call Edinburgh. If you call Paris from Derby then you are calling a different country. If you go on holiday to Malta and have a UK sim then you would be roaming so of course it will cost more, the same if you live in Little Rock and went on holiday to Mexico.
See the comment above, Disqus hasn’t attributed it to me and didn’t post it as a reply for some reason.
Leigh was referring to the distances involved rather than borders created by the human race. London to Paris as the crow flies is 213.006 miles and would cost significantly more for making/receiving a phone call than London to Edinburgh, a distance of 331.874 miles. However, San Francisco to New York is 2565.642 miles (again, as the crow flies) and is included in USA price plans to the best of my knowledge.
The USA can be viewed as a series of states, which can be easily applied to Europe (with the EU member states). Therefore, Europe is eligible for cross-state (country) communications in the same way the USA is. For those of us who travel abroad, it’s a good idea that could pass on real benefit to the consumer.