Translated material
Roaming games
Russians will pay for telephone calls of Europeans
The European Parliament by a majority vote approved a sharp reduction in prices for telephone roaming within the EU countries. In 2008, the cost of an outgoing roaming call will be 46 eurocents, an incoming call - 22 eurocents, and a year later - 43 and 19 eurocents, respectively. What may affect Russian cellular subscribers.You and I have nothing to be happy about - for Russian tourists, prices at best will remain the same. At worst, they will increase, since European operators, willy-nilly, will have to find ways to compensate for losses. Moreover, the losses are significant: the income of European operators from roaming averages more than 10%. Forced prices will reduce roaming profits several times, which may provoke European operators to raise prices for non-European operators, including Russian ones. We have nothing to answer. Many times more Russians travel to Europe than Europeans travel to Russia, which puts our operators in unequal conditions of competition with European ones.
The ability to use a telephone and your own number while traveling is a key advantage of modern GSM networks. It is thanks to international roaming that this standard has long overtaken other, no worse cellular communication technologies in popularity. Traveling around the world while staying connected is a great benefit, but you have to pay for the pleasure. The cost of a call in another country depends on the prices included in the agreement between “your” and “foreign” operator. A minute of conversation can cost more than 100 rubles. Of these, the foreign roaming partner gets the cost of a minute of local communication plus another 15-20 rubles. The rest goes to “their” operator.
Anyone who has been abroad with their phone at least once knows perfectly well how quickly money flies out of their account. Worldwide conspiracy of mobile operators? To some extent, of course, and they (the operators) don’t even hide it, fortunately you can always blame it on the roaming partner. Russian operators point to foreign ones, and they point to Russian ones, as if no one is to blame and nothing can be done. The consumer is shelling out money.
In summer, you have to spend especially intensively on roaming. Therefore, now the so-called “tourist SIM cards” are becoming increasingly popular - cards from European operators, sold in Russia and prepared for use by Russians in Europe. The savings are considerable, but traveling with your “native” phone number is much more convenient.
Communication expenses for a month of vacation are sometimes higher than those for the rest of the 11 months. Therefore, it makes sense to study the summer roaming initiatives of Russian cellular operators.
From June 4 to August 31, Beeline halves the cost of calls in Turkey, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus, and the price of calls in any local network is the same: 28.5 rubles. per minute of conversation. And we can send SMS messages for 11 rubles. instead of 15 rub. at normal times.
In the summer, Megafon-Moscow will offer a special “Vacation” promotion for vacationers in Bulgaria, Greece, Spain, Serbia, Montenegro, Turkey, Croatia, Cyprus and Malta: every second minute of an incoming call in roaming is free. In other words, pay 29 rubles. You will only have to use odd-numbered incoming minutes. True, calls home will not be cheap; for these purposes it is better to buy a calling card on the spot.
In MTS, roaming prices have remained almost unchanged (although they increased slightly a couple of weeks ago). The company chose to fight for the consumer under the slogan “Travel and stay connected! This is MTS! through massive television advertising of egg-shaped islands in Greece and France, egg-shaped rocks in Greece, egg-shaped Portuguese haystacks, etc.