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| Friday, 13 April 2007 | |
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The sublime subterfuge of roaming regimes needs to be picked apart and thrown asunder. Transborder calling was once the preserve of business users; now it’s aimed at fleecing the European underclass that heads south for the winter (and the summer).
As a frequent visitor to Turkey I quietly cheered when Europe took another step towards breaking up the roaming cartel. Laughingly I asked whether calls would be cheaper. Not to Turkey, they won’t! Or so I was informed. Vodafone’s pathetic pre-emptive ‘Passport’ measures are just like those of the EC: EU-only. It owns the correspondent carrier. Vodafone has made much of how market forces can decide roaming rates but its rip-offs in Turkey and elsewhere are incredible. Only late in 2005 did it buy a controlling stake in Turkish mobile operator Telsim. Since then Vodafone, soi-disant global operator, has refused to recognise this part of its network. Why? Because it is making too much money by doing nothing at all. Good job that nobody is cataloguing its malfeasance with a view to presenting further evidence to the European authorities. Good job that nobody is going to record the incoming/outgoing cost of each call received there. Good job that this data will be used to widen the debate over roaming, Vodafone’s rubbish roaming tariffs for the EU do not extend to Turkey or any other countries where Vodafone can siphon traffic to a preferred or owned partner. Personally I think Vodafone should be hounded to the ends of the earth until it stops systematically ripping off its customers who dare to venture abroad. Its US-domiciled customers are likewise ripped off when they visit Europe or most other corners of the world. Vodafone is only singled out here because its global footprint makes it look like a spectacularly nasty scalping delinquent company. The others in Europe’s “booming’ mobile industry join up as if magnetically coupled to form a cartel. Yesterday’s ITRE proposals suggested that pan-European calling would be charged roughly equal to standard calling rates. The European Parliament would be daft to vote against that next month (hint: the EP is daft, so it might vote against it). More crucial will be the individual ratifications by each Member State of these new price caps. The UK, France, Germany and Spain will likely vote against; 21 other Member States will tell the cartelists where to get off, one hopes. This is our moment… Jim Chalmers |
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