[endijs]

This idea was good. But in reality what happened in Latvia was very simple and expected move by telcos - all three of them raised prices for all subscriptions by about 3€-4€ monthly (which is ~30% increase). Yes, now you can feel better while traveling, however everyone now pays extra every single month. For some situation now is better, while others pay for it even if they do not need such freedom. Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.

Edited: It's interesting to see how comment which states facts, can get upvoted and downvoted this much. Sometimes voting in HN does not make any sense (to me). I understand that upvote is "thanks for letting us know those facts". What are downvotes representing? That I should not write at all, that price increase for all 3 telcos is fine, that everyone should be happy? Rhetorical question.

[KKKKkkkk1]

That kind of thing used to happen in Israel too. Every time the government introduced a new regulation aiming to reduce mobile costs, the three companies would respond by simultaneously raising prices. And then the government used the nuclear option--They licensed two new mobile operators. And the prices plummeted.

[devcpp]

More importantly, they forced the old operators to play nice: they can't try too hard to retain customers, they can't lower their prices too much, etc. Absolute control is a strong component of Israeli regulation (transports, broadband, cellular, gas...)

[Paul-ish]

Why is that the nuclear option? I would expect more competition to be the go to solution.

[lostlogin]

That logic doesn't work with telecoms, or with other big infrastructure type companies - water, power, sewerage.

[Paul-ish]

Is wireless as bad as those three?

[girvo]

My understanding is yes, it is, mainly because spectrum is a limited resource

[ptaipale]

However, it's not as bad. You can't practically build another set of power or water distribution grid, but you can assign new frequencies to new operators. There's a limit on how many you can have, but you can have way more than with those services where there is a physical pipe or line to each point of consumption.

[DrJokepu]

Generally speaking, the problem with the "just stating facts" argument is that it's impossible to list all relevant facts and by picking which facts to list and which facts not to list, you are editorializing and making subjective judgements, which means it's far from being an objective thing.

[ahallock]

Your comment also seems like a fallacy. How do you really know it's impossible to list all the relevant facts? I don't think you've addressed anything, just made some imaginary goal line that you can keep pushing back forever.

[rainingtomorrow]

Latvia and Lithuania have literally the cheapest telco services in Europe. It's no surprise that we have to pay a bit more now. Yes, we lose this time, but for the rest of the Europe it's a huge win.

[vmarsy]

How much is it exactly? I thought you can't beat Free's prices in France with 2€/mo for 1h phone and unlimited text, and 20€/mo for everything unlimited : phone/text/4G.

Since they showed up all other telcos in France had to adjust and offer around the same, around 25€ max instead of the usual 60€ to 80€ they'd offer before Free.

[lucaspiller]

Lithuania: Phone plans aren't that cheap, I assume because there are only three main operators and they don't really make much money. People here don't have money for the latest iPhone which you would pay €60+/mo for, so their main source of income is service plans. Typically contracts are sold without a phone, and I'd say people would spend on average, under €10/mo. That would get you unlimited calls and texts and a few GB of data. Prepaid plans are usually a bit cheaper, I currently (a special offer for a few months) pay €3.99/mo for unlimited calls and texts and 1.5GB data.

I also have a portable 4G hotspot with unlimited data (I've used around 50GB this month) for €4.90/mo, including rental of the device. It's limited at 6 Mbit but that's fine for my needs (you can pay more for up to 25 Mbit). However the main reason why it's so cheap is because it's from a smaller operator, so you only really get coverage in big cities and even then it can be patchy (like Three when they first launched in Europe).

Home internet is a different story though. I pay €9.90/mo for unlimited 100/100 FTTH, and I can get up to 1000/1000 for €19.90/mo - downloading a 6GB Steam game in under 10 minutes seems fast enough though. In 2015 home broadband coverage (>= 30 Mbit) was 99%, with 62% of subscribers on fibre [0].

[0] http://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/document.cfm?doc_id=44449

[nunobrito]

Germany I'm paying 19 EUR/month with a phone included. No limits on phone calls within Germany (fixed and mobile), but I pay for each SMS sent and only get 2Gb of data.

[eoin_murphy]

Sorry for the derail, but who are you with in Germany for that deal? All the contracts I've seen start at at least €40.

[nunobrito]

Oops, just saw this question now. I've registered with https://www.otelo.de/ after seeing their publicity on TV two years ago and they still seem to have available these promotions.

They have several phone models to choose. You pay 1 EUR for most models from Samsung or Sony, a bit more for the deluxe editions (iphone and sorts). Now they even offer more because SMS are free and I still pay extra for each one, but doesn't matter because I simply use other messaging apps.

The Sony Xperia models are good, they're waterproof by default and resistant to shocks, albeit camera is crappy (compared to normal Samsung models)

[Rotareti]

I pay 12 Eur for unlimited calls/sms within Germany; 3 GB data; w/o phone; w/o contract term (it can be canceled any time); 100min and 100MB free in other EU countries.

[donjoe]

They exist. Even prepaid options are getting cheaper. Take a look at discounter offers (Aldi, Lidl etc). Though don't expect great network coverage on the countryside...

[nercury]

It was costing less, now it is a bit more than you say. I think this law forced cheaper operators to make deals with all the other country operators, no one was going to decrease prices, so in the end we got the maxed out price.

[tixzdk]

I pay 15€ for unlimited everything in Denmark (but with reasonable caps imposed on European roaming)

[chinathrow]

> Latvia and Lithuania have literally the cheapest telco services in Europe.

Relative to the cost of living?

[linkregister]

You win in the aggregate, because Latvian and Lithuanian exporters and importers now have less friction when traveling. Likely a rise in trade, leading to more company and tax revenue, leading to higher employment.

[vsl]

My telco cancelled roaming on data-only plans altogether in reaction. Such a huge win.

Virtual operators, who don't get any roaming income, still have to pay high roaming fees to other telcos and now can't even charge their expenses to customers are basically screwed and have to increase prices. Such a huge win.

[akerro]

So richer western countries win, you will pay more and it's ok?

[grasshopper12a]

Yeah, Lithuania and Latvia receive a lot of cash from the EU to upgrade their infrastructure. It's not all black or white, but this doesn't seem like a big issue when you see the support the country received.

[vsl]

That "support" (I.e. Donations) goes to politically well connected companies, burns some 20% on well-connected middlemen and has to be co-funded. Some first hand experience with how harmful and ineffective the donations are would do you good.

[filleokus]

Same thing happening in Sweden as well. Many people in the comments here are saying that their bills haven't been raised, but at least here in Sweden the price are only raised for new contracts.

There is also (AFAIK) some limits on this. I.e, you cannot get a contract in a cheap neighbouring country and use it all the time roaming from you home country. To unify all EU telco markets and increase competition between carriers might be a long term goal of the legislator, but as far as I can tell, right now it's only really applicable for travel.

[Symbiote]

The standard monthly contract price, 150kr/month or whatever, is the big number that customers look at when signing a contract. It's where the companies compete, so they can't increase the prices beyond a reasonable amount.

There's no longer the hidden cost of being caught with a bill for 500kr after returning from a European holiday.

[filleokus]

That's true, and I agree that the high bill is nice to avoid. But also, I think it's classic pro-regulation-people to be surprised by companies levying the fee on the end customers. I guess also, that for most consumers, they would rather have some other system (reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data?) for those European holidays instead of paying 10-30 SEK extra per month, for ever. I would guess most people don't roam even once per year.

[janywer]

There wasn't a good, reasonable way to buy cheap roaming-data, at least not with my German contract. 150MB of roaming in the EU was 5€ with the purchase process (via SMS) being bugged and failing 50% of the time, sometimes charging my credit card instantly while delivering the "You can use your roaming data now" message days later when I was back home, customer support could not help because they "do not suggest that the data is available instantly". n=1, obviously.

[kungtotte]

I'm sure there are lots of people who roam a lot; people travel on business all the time, truck drivers cross borders all the time, anyone living along the border to Norway or Finland goes across a lot, anybody in Skåne is an hour or two away from Denmark, and let's not forget the thousands who take the ferries over to Finland and Åland.

And who is going to buy a roaming package when you're gone for at most 24 hours? A week in Greece or Mallorca and it makes sense with something like that.

[HNBRN]

However the situation is much better now. It was very common for us French people to discover a huge roaming bill after a trip in another European country. At least roaming cost are becoming predictable

[nunobrito]

Yep. Still remember when I got charged 8 EUR just for being close to the border with the Czech Republic but still within our side of the border.

They made a lot of money with this roaming business.

[ptaipale]

All GSM and later digital phones, starting with Nokia 2110 and its contemporaries, had an option to refuse roaming - just to avoid accidental phone bills like this.

(I think the 1st generation NMT network in Nordic countries also had the same, though I am not sure as I never owned one.)

[imron]

Yes, because it appears the Latvians are now subsidising your roaming charges.

[rainingtomorrow]

And the French are subsidising Latvian agriculture, universities, roads, and infrastructure. I don't think it's fair to evaluate this policy isolated from the rest of EU policies.

[ptaipale]

The French are subsidising French agriculture and so is everyone else in EU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy

[pavlov]

There are two million Latvians. Pre-Brexit EU has over 500 million citizens. Your math doesn't work unless each Latvian is paying 5000 euros / month.

[ZeroGravitas]

It's possible that visitors to Lithuania were paying high termination fees to the local telco and subsidizing the native subscribers.

Assuming the telco profits remained static (which may or may not be true) presumably someone was paying these costs before and if it wasn't Lithuanians then who was it?

[narag]

I guess you're not serious, are you?

[imron]

Not that serious.

But the grandparent post was someone from Latvia saying 'this is terrible our prices have gone up' which was followed by someone from France saying 'no this is great our prices have gone down'.

Someone's paying for it, and I doubt it's the Telcos who are losing out.

[baq]

Oh, telcos absolutely lose, because there were a few companies present in most EU countries and somehow most of them charged for roaming anyway only because they could - it cost them nothing extra.

Parcels are next, so I hear.

[aquadrop]

Do you think Latvians don't go to other EU countries and don't use roaming? Those who do now pay less, so it's Latvians paying for Latvians.

[teh_klev]

Not trying to play HN policeman but:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please resist commenting about being downvoted. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

[czr80]

This doesn't really make sense - what was stopping them from raising prices before, if people are really willing to pay 3-4 EUR more?

[Certhas]

It's good timing because it will have the customers "blaming Europe" for the cost increase rather than the Telcos.

[yehat]

As I stated also above - this raise is not only observed in Latvia, Lithuania, but across eastern countries in EU as well. You ask about the reason - how about "let's try to compensate the loses", or "let's try as a preventive action", etc. Now - I believe they are not going to keep this long down the road. You said "if people are willing to pay", but that should really be the question - are they? We'll see. I personally will downgrade my plan, as a reaction to theirs. What is important and strange, that even with less national data, there is a lot more in roaming.

[dullgiulio]

In fact I suspect the raise in prices has nothing to do with this.

Inflation in LT and LV is between 3% and 4% now, and salaries are also growing at about 5%.

[Eridrus]

This is probably not true in this case, but in markets with lots of competition, raising the costs raises prices because companies are already providing services close to cost.

Even in less competitive markets, raising the cost of providing a service will shift the supply curve, which can result in increased prices.

[rsync]

"Edited: It's interesting to see how comment which states facts, can get upvoted and downvoted this much."

I downvoted you because you talked about your downvotes.

Write your comment and live with the results - don't interrupt the discussion to complain about your score.

[yehat]

I can only upvote this. Exactly the same in Bulgaria. Now telcos don't include the mobile internet as they did previously. If you're to to retain the same amount of data, you have to pay more more expensive plan. The paradox here is there're plans with say 400MB national megabytes, but 1200MB in roaming! Due to the weird formula implied for calculating the limit of data in roaming - related only to the cost of monthly bill you have.

[john61]

The idea was not to lower prices, but to align mobile pricing to basic EU freedoms:

* Free movement of persons

* Freedom to establish and provide services

[anigbrowl]

Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.

The difficulty here is gauging how happy or unhappy people are. People who don't travel so much may feel unhappy at subsidizing those who do, but it's like insurance. If you have to travel unexpectedly, suddenly that inconvenience seems well worth it compared to the unpleasant experience of receiving a large bill for traveling. This is even more true if your travel is involuntary (visiting a sick relative instead of taking a holiday, for example).

There was similar short-term dissatisfaction in the US as landline carriers moved towards offering free long-distance calling within the USA some years ago. Some people objected that they shouldn't have to pay more for phone service since they rarely made calls outside their own town town/county. But the market as a whole preferred the simplicity of a one-size fits all plan, and arguably some of the savings in reduced billing complexity found their way back to consumers, as landline pricing gradually fell to an even lower equilibrium in the following years. This was before mobile telephony really took off. I don't have links offhand, but I do remember being pleased by my low monthly telephony bills.

It's a good idea to consider the second-order effects as well as the first-order effects.

[mtgx]

I think it's a small price to pay to have the freedom as a country to talk to anyone in Europe cheaply. The effects won't be felt right away, but just as cheaper flights across Europe have made Europeans much more interconnected, so will cheap roaming fees (even though for the sub-30 generation, WhatsApp calls and such are already the norm).

[mstade]

But the regulation only applies to roaming so it doesn't really affect calls made from your home country to another EU country, which can still be much more than a typical local call.

[watson]

Roaming is for when you travel (i.e. bring your mobile phone to another country), not when you call someone in another country

[Retric]

If roaming is free, can't you just use another countries cellphone provider? And if so, it's likely the cheapest country needed to raise rates should people from more expensive areas do so.

[jahnu]

No. There are various limits. One of which is you have a limited amount of time you can roam for per year before you have to start paying. It's not too bad though. The real shit loophole is that they don't give you your full data allowance when roaming. It's needlessly complicated of course. Very rough idea: if you get 10gb for €10 a month you can roam for free for 2gb of that.

[giomasce]

BTW, the free roaming data will increase in the next years (see second question in https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...).

[jahnu]

Indeed, but still at prices which are well above current prices for my domestic rate. By 2022 one would imaging domestic rates will be still lower making that maximum rate much worse than it looks now. A true end to roaming would mean I can use everything I pay for exactly the same over the whole EU. Long way to go yet before we have a true single market.

[kungtotte]

The amount of roaming you get depends on your carrier and contract. We get up to 20 GB of roaming or your contract data cap, whichever is lowest. E.g. me and my wife can roam for 20 GB because our contract is for 24 GB, but if we had a 12 or 6 GB plan we could only get 12 or 6 respectively.

[jahnu]

Right. That's why I said needlessly complicated :) Takes so much effort to work everything out. They rely on this to make profits from mistakes.

[Someone]

That is much harder now; they now have to warn you when you reach your limit. See question 17 on https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...: "Therefore, as long as your operator has not contacted you while abroad, you can roam like at home without any worries."

So, they still can charge lots to those who, getting warned, don't immediately stop using their phone.

It is complicated because this is a political compromise. Everybody knows where the EU wants to end up (the frequent use of 'may' in that answer is a nice indicator), but that means shifting income of operators around (in general, operators in popular holiday countries lose a substantial source of income), so it can't happen in a Big Bang operation.

[ipedrazas]

No, the rule says that you can use abroad what you've been using "at home" on a regular basis.

[edgecrafter]

No, as far as I can see all dataplans (in Denmark) differentiate between "at home" and in EU allowance, e.g. I can use 8GB out of 40gb monthly in EU

Anyway, for a typical one week vacation this is a good step forward.

[m_t]

It's not free, it's just included in your existing contract.

You're paying for 300 minutes at home? When you're abroad and phoning to a EU number, you're using those 300 minutes. Before, you either had to get a special package, or pay roaming charges.

[endijs]

Telecom services are pretty cheap in Latvia if we compare to other countries in EU. However we cant forget, that Latvia is also one of poorest EU countries. While for some that 3€-4€ increase is nothing, others do feel it and are not happy.

[matteuan]

No https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_roaming_regulat...

[NaliSauce]

>Those who are in first category are happy, others not so much.

Here's a thought: the people in society with the lowest income have to pay for this just like everyone else, yet they are the ones least likely to benefit from it.

It is unfortunately a pattern that you'll find widespread in what the EU does. It benefits the the people with already higher income in the member countries way more than those with a low income. Sometimes it even makes the bottom of society subsidize those with higher incomes than they have - as is the case here.

[evandijk70]

This is not what happened in the Netherlands. I just renewed my contract, and it is a lot cheaper now. I pay 12,50 euro per month for 200 min/sms and 5 gb of data, whereas the same plan used to be around 16,50. They are advertising this plan everywhere.

[penetrarthur]

11 eur/month for everything unlimited here in Latvia. You just have to negotiate the price.

[erazor42]

No change in France from one the main operator (Orange) (yet...)

[marmaduke]

Really? I had a SMS from SFR yesterday on this.

[tripzilch]

> What are downvotes representing?

in your case, you're the top comment thread on a front page article. it probably represents "I would like to see a different thread at the top", and you shouldn't take it personally, it might even be because they don't like the discussion happening as reply below your posts.

either that, or idiots. they hide in numbers.

[jamaicahest]

Same thing happened in Denmark. Several operators advertised a rise in prices with the exact reasoning: To pay for the loss of roaming charges. They actually advertised that the price rise was to pay for their lost income, as if to somehow try to gather sympathy from the average customer.

[mvindahl]

Fortunately, some telcos didn't. My wife made the switch from Telmore to Oister due to being annoyed with Telmore's price hike. It was the proverbial straw I guess ..

[andriussev]

Comparing, in Lithuania, nothing much has changed in regards to local prices but for EU, they actually still provide separate additional packages. The best one for internet seems to be 3eur/1GB.

[yehat]

That's right, however check the terms of each package, you probably will find that those are under "alternative terms" which are allowed in the new regulation, and if you accept, they take precedence.

[_Tev]

We (Czechs) have relatively expensive plans that are slowly getting cheaper over time. And this roamimg-cancelling didn't affect that trend at all ...

[matteuan]

The european antitrust should punish this behaviour!

[endijs]

Local antitrust agency recently told that they will look into this "synchronized pricing rise". However I really doubt that they will do anything about it.

[jacquesm]

Vodafone and O2 got fined with 20M last October for price fixing and that's not the first such fine either.

[ipedrazas]

don't think they can. Telcos are not going to say "we raise the price because roaming" so, even if we all know, they will walk away.

I'm sure their lawyers made sure they could do it... sadly.

[olegkikin]

Our operator in Italy doubled the prices.

[lightedman]

"It's interesting to see how comment which states facts, can get upvoted and downvoted this much"

That's what happens when you let programmers try running a social site like this, especially when they have no real idea of social grace.