So do you suggest that the cost of stamps in Greece goes up significantly, or that the Dutch intentionally lose money?

Not quite this, but 25 years ago the EU had a system where letters posted to other EU countries had the same stamp as needed in that country. Of course this would mean that letters from Greece would be cheaper than letters from the Netherlands. This lasted a few years and was abandoned.

I think they might do more about post at present, but something on the mobile front would be very welcome.

You wouldn't necessarily need to have the same rate -- just have Dutch €1 stamps accepted in Greece, and Greek €1 stamps accepted in the Netherlands etc.

It could be produced in a denomination high enough to cover the first-class letter rate in the most expensive country in the Eurozone -- since it'd mostly be used by tourists, the lost value from mailing in lower-rate countries would probably be a worthwhile tradeoff for the convenience.

Who are these people who buy stamps in Greece and worry about using them in the Netherlands? Have they heard of email?

Yeah, I'm not seeing the utility here...I guess it might be slightly more convenient for tourists to mail their postcards home if they didn't have to buy stamps in each country? Doesn't seem like a problem worthy of a solution.

As fascinating as the stamp discussion is.....back to telecom. As someone who does not follow the politics too closely, if this proposal is successful, what sort of time frame would we be looking at for implementation?

From this press release:

Yeah, I guess there are only millions of them every year. Sad old fools, really.

You're right. Sorry for hijacking the thread.

cheers,

Henry

Thanks for the details^

(now, back to stamps as you wish:p)

Cool. Back to stamps, then:
While there may be millions of people who mail postcards from foreign countries, I sincerely doubt that there are millions of people who consider it inconvenient to buy stamps in the country they're in at the time they send their postcards. I doubt that the millions of postcard senders are sad at all. In fact, many people may consider it preferable to buy stamps at the time of posting (or when they buy the postcards) because that's when they know exactly how many stamps they need.
So this is almost certainly a problem unworthy of a solution.

That's completely specious because under the proposed system you wouldn't have to know exactly how many you need since if, for whatever reason, you had to purchase locally and you had some left at the end of the trip ... you can take them home and use them there. Duh.

Your (repeated and thus apparently firmly held) opinion, so this is almost certainly a discussion unworthy of a continuation.

With all respect: if you want to change the discussion from the original subject to something else, please start another thread or end it here. Thanks for your understanding.

This is a good news.
The indecent speculation of the telecoms in EU needs to be caged somehow.
Hopefully their lobby in Bruxelles will not bend the reasons of somwthing that belongs to common sense.
The 2016 is way too far.

You seem to be missing a fundamental point about the working of stamped mail: The mail moves around the world because the originating postal system pays for it. The stamp has nothing to do with anything apart from payment to the first postal operator (and the stamp is not the payment, but the receipt).

The original postal operator checks the value of the stamp, if it is sufficient they move the mail on to the final postal operator. The originating operator pays directly for everything up to the final operator (the stamp on the item is irrelevant), the final destination operator charges the originating one for the local 'in country' delivery (again the stamp on the item is irrelevant).

The key thing is the stamp is checked for value, NOT because sight of the stamp on a posted item transfers this value to first operator, but because the stamp is a receipt/token for value that they have ALREADY received - when the stamp was sold (directly or indirectly in a shop).

Under your envisaged system, if another postal operator had sold the original stamp the first operator to see the mail item where it is posted would NOT have received this value originally. Even if it displayed which operator had sold the stamp, there would be no mechanism to transfer this value from the stamp selling postal operator to the first operator to receive the item, any transfer would purely be on an 'alleged' basis.

The only starting way for it to work (And it still wouldn't work) would be a revenue share model, but it would be horrendous and incalculable - huge winners and looser. This method works with (for example) UK train tickets - where any operator can sell you a ticket for any route, purely because the tickets are route specific (from A to C, via or not via B) and not generic distance (e.g. 'X miles of distance'). There are strict rules for the revenue share between operators - including where operators both compete on a section of the route, how the revenue divides up between them even though you could only have been on one train.

You are far more likely to see the end of traditional stamps before you see common ones.

A standard for label printed personalised e-stamps (bar code reference number) that allow for use in any country by revenue transfer would be possible. But the market tiny, hard to justify development.

What is speculative about their business model? Other than the funding and upgrading of the mast networks?

Given the structure of the market (multiple operators in each country, with strong internal competition on the mainstay business, and a valuable revenue stream from roaming) it is clear why market forces would not have achieved a good deal for the consumer without capping, everything was stacked against a roaming specialist operator.