<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by stimpy:
You guys seem to be focused on billing which is the least of the issues, even though it is different than domestic for reasons including regulatory requirements. Also, are you aware of how much telcos have to pay in clearinghouse fees? I know it used to be a lot back when I was involved. However, you're not paying attention to the international HLR/VLR systems which cost a fortune, nor are you considering all the interconnects and the OAM&P that is involved. These items cost big bucks and as I said earlier, there aren't enough of us using it to make it cheap.
I'm confident that the EU will not crack down on these fees in any significant manner since they are justified. It's just a political pose to answer the people complaining. </font>
Stimpy... They pay verry little now - trust me... I deal with data and voice interchange billing for services we are developing that are cross networks.. Most networks are able to bypass clearinhouses as they now use limited VOIP between their networks. I do NOT blame the EU to look into this. There is ZERO excuse why a user on Vodafone UK should be paying the rate they do when roaming on Vodafone Germany... They don't even use a clearinghouse.
Bottom line is costs have gone done dramatically for intl roaming - the costs to the user has not dropped to that same proportion