From: "tim....." 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Mobile Phone Charges (Was:Re: Unauthorised Overdraft Charges)
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 19:08:14 +0100


"Fergus O'Rourke"  wrote in message 
news:58rkm0F2ii8etU2@mid.individual.net...
> tim..... wrote:
>> "Fergus O'Rourke"  wrote in message
>> news:58etofF2frg1tU5@mid.individual.net...
>>> "tim....."  wrote in message
>>> news:58e9ppF2gqlp8U1@mid.individual.net...
>>>>
>>>> "Mogga"  wrote in message
>>>> news:lhk223l9320pm1m2a11htc8hh8d6b2dq9c@4ax.com...
>>> [snip]
>>>>> Likewise if mbile phone companies are made to reduce their overseas
>>>>> call charges then surely they'll want the same profit and will
>>>>> have to squeeze it from all users not just those who don't manage
>>>>> to get it together enough to get a sim card for overseas...
>>>>
>>>> I agree with you on this one Mogga.  I can't for the life
>>>> of me see that this is something that the EU should
>>>> be meddling in.  If people don't want to pay high roaming
>>>> charges they are easily avoided.
>>>
>>> I have become increasingly Eurosceptical as sclerosis has set in,
>>> but ISTM that this is precisely the kind of thing "that the EU
>>> should be meddling in".
>>
>> Why?  Whichever way you cut it, a mobile phone is a
>> luxury, no-one needs to have one and no-one needs to
>> make international calls from it.
>
> Nearly everyone I know would disagree. I am forced to conclude that you 
> lead a rather more insular life than those of us on the other island.

Everybody having one, does not make an item a necessity.

>
>> ISTM that the companies providing the mobile service are
>> free to set the charges to their own customers at whatever
>> level they like and let the market decide.
>
> The market by law (including UK law) is EU wide.
>
>> Almost no-one is against a common market.
>>
>> What has the cost of mobile phone calls got to do with
>> a common market.  You could just as easily argue that
>> it should cost the same in each country to send a letter
>> or take a bus ride
>
> Unless the differences in the prices of those services were obstructing 
> inter-state commerce with no justification from cost differentials, it 
> would not be as easy.

Suggesting that mobile phone prices is an inpediment
to interstate communications is a gross overstatement
(and then some more).

As I said before, absolutely no-one needs to make
a phone call using a phone that they have imported
into another country,  Everybody, repeat everybody
who wants to make a phone call in another country
has the option of buying a local sim card/phone.

tim