One thing that has been in the news a lot recently is the fact that the European Union has been investigating the amount that mobile phone operators are charging their users to make calls over seas. This process, called roaming has been the subject of debate for a number of years, with consumers feeling that the networks are charging too much for the service.

The networks have argued that they need to charge more for overseas calls because they have so many charge components. For example, if a UK customer uses their mobile in Spain, their call will be handled by the Spanish network, then transferred to the UK by an international operator, before being routed in the UK by whichever their network is, and finally by the network of the person they are calling.

This, say the mobile phone operators is a complex process, and the charges that are levied for it are entirely reasonable. However, one thing that the networks rarely mention is that they are often partners or even owners of both networks that the caller uses. For example, T-Mobile own networks across the world, and users will automatically register with them on arrival. Vodafone and Orange are the same.

This means that there are fewer parties who demand a share of the revenue than the networks generally claim, they are different divisions within a single company rather than separate businesses, and therefore the charges should be lower.

The EU has noticed this, and have decided that the charges must be reduced in the future, and this will be a real benefit to users who travel a lot, as they will now pay much less for their overseas calls than they ever did before.

The networks argue that they have been able to use the high overseas charges to subsidise the calls made by people on their home network, and these will now have to rise in order to ensure that their business models remain sustainable.

The long term effect of the reduced prices for mobile phone roaming charges when overseas may well be a reduction in the number of free minutes or a price increase, or perhaps a two tier system under which you can either opt into a world wide network at the start of your contract and pay a supplement to get cheaper calls, or alternatively just limit yourself to your home country and make alternative arrangements when you go abroad.

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