VoIP

• With international business and travel continuing to surge, AT&T customer have been up in arms lately due to escalated roaming charges for US subscribers.
• Now with the iPhone 3G working in Europe and Asia, suddenly “Turn Data Roaming Off” is not an option for AT&T customers wanting to use their phones for email, maps, SMS, Internet browsing and most importantly useful applications that need a data connection to push
• AT&T now charges $.0195/KB ($19.96/MB) while T-Mobile charges about $.015 ($15.36/MB). From a simple week trip of using mail and maps (no other applications), users like CrunchGear’s John Biggs have been racking up international phone bills of up to $736.
• AT&T is already losing a considerable amount of business to their savvy customers who have been using ‘pay as you go’ SIM cards or a MaxRoam SIM and a Rebel SIMCard for the iPhone 3G.
• Also, many customers have been ditching AT$T international data usage to purchase Boingo for Wi-Fi roaming in airports and, increasingly, cities.
• As usual, Europe is ahead of the game taking care of the problem. Last week, the European Commission, placed price caps on roaming SMS messages. The price cut was substantial, reducing retail text message prices from an average of 0.29 Euros to 0.11 Euros. The wholesale rate has been capped at 0.04 Euros.
• US carriers have done no such thing.
• What’s the solution for US carriers? Well, for starters, they need to beat their current international plans for data and voice usage. If AT&T doesn’t make any moves over the next couple years to do this and wi-fi becomes increasingly more present with plans like the US free wireless spectrum, they will have no choice but to make swift changes in their pricing.
• With mobile phones having been around for 20+ years now, and the relationships within the telecom industry amongst the major carriers of the world, I think it is time to offer customers a realistic solution, whether that be free data and VOIP capabilities via third party applications or a significant decrease in price for all.
• Thoughts on solutions beyond this?

Something I have always thought as a viable plan: Since business travellers can most often be pinpointed to sticking within major cities. Let the US carriers swap part of their spectrum with the carriers like Vodafone in Europe. US travellers can purchase a cheap additional plan for business travel to major destinations where once they are in the city, can use their phone as if they were back in the US (or Europeans travelling here using their phones as if they were in Europe). Let the carriers split the revenue. Now you can at least make it through your business trip for a small additional fee with no hassles. Is that feasible? Maybe not, but it’s certainly better than what we’ve got.CG

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