The shocking disparity of data roaming and Pay as you Go while abroad
I’m in Armenia, and I was planning on relying on Wi-fi hotspots to keep me connected, but as the group i was having dinner with were heading to buy some prepaid SIM cards, I thought “why not” and checked the price. 500 Armenian Dram picked up a SIM card with 400 Dram on the card. At a metered rate of 5 dram per megabyte, that gives me 80MB to play with. On previous experience Windows Phone pulls down 15-20MB a week for my regular usage, so I’m set (or at least will be when the SIM is activated in the morning).
You know what’s upsetting about this? On my UK Orange contract, the roaming cost in Armenia is £5.50 per megabyte.
£5.50, at the current exchange rate, is 3,296 Dram.
659 times more. Six hundred and fifty nine times more… that’s a hideously high mark-up. is it any wonder people think networks rip people off over mobile roaming charges – especially data? even with some nice little numbers for Europe, cap rates and more, this is just absolutely crazy. I thought that UK roaming data in the US was bad…
Needless to say I’m not roaming…
Has anyone ever questioned the rational behind it? Does anyone know their reasons for such high ‘roaming’ charges? Is there a valid reason?
This ripoff happens everywhere. When in Switzerland I bought a Swisscom sim, for 4CHF a day, I got an amazing 1Gb of data. this turned out to be very smart – had forgotten to switch off windows update and overnight my laptop downloaded 600Mb in updates – would have cost about £1k on 3! at the time 4CHF was about £2.50
Enough said – happens everywhere and is completely unjustifiable – are Vodafone, Telefonica etc really saying it costs them that much to account for it intercompany – often in the same group. If they are, they need a new accounting system!
Yes. I have 25-odd SIM cards in my bag for a reason. There are a couple of fairly good wikis to help you get the best / easiest deal:
http://prepaidwithdata.wikia.com/wiki/Prepaid_SIM_with_data
and
http://prepaid-wireless-internet-access.wetpaint.com/
oy vey! I have been traveling all over europe the last 2 months and have had to buy sim cards everywhere i go. the roaming on some of these networks is absolutely ridiculous. I have found that Orange/Tmobile are the easiest to work with if they are available in the area. O2 here in london is just too expensive.