Analysis: Data roaming 'walls' are coming down -- but not everyone is happy

In the old days it was governments that built the walls and ‘the people’ who tore them down. ‘The people’ included owners of companies that wanted to do business with whoever they liked, whenever they liked, wherever they liked.

Now, it seems, it is the other way round. In the world of roaming, and particularly data roaming, it is the companies that have built the walls and governments tearing them down.

In the US, Verizon and AT&T began feeling pressure to open their mobile data networks to smaller competitors earlier this year (CP: Verizon uses familiar arguments in data roaming challenge), while in Europe it is a similar picture and companies are now lobbying hard to be allowed to carry on charging premiums (CP: Telcos vs. Google and friends, the fight is on (European style)).

We Interrupt With A Brief Data Roaming Story

Two people are sitting in a bar. It is so noisy that the first person decides to text the second person to ask him what he wants to drink. The second person gets the text and replies. He is on a different network. Somewhere the text is tracked and logged – identified as being part of the first person’s bundle and no charge is made.

The first person’s friend is sitting in a bar in Singapore (very late at night) and decides to text the first person to ask what he is drinking back home. A few humorous texts fly backwards and forwards across two oceans. Somewhere the texts are tracked and both parties find an extra few dollars on their bill the following month. After all, they were texting while roaming.

That was where it started and it is the simplest of examples. In the age of mobile broadband it is only the volume that is different, and only from the companies’ point of view. If our friend from the bar in Singapore (an example, only, Singapore is pretty good with its roaming charges) goes to sleep and his smart smartphone downloads a couple of software updates he could be looking at a major data cost.

He is, after all, guilty of data roaming.

Data Roaming Lessons Learned

Three things we have been taught by mobile operators over the past few years:

1) geography is history
2) roaming traffic basically balances itself out (certainly in mature markets)
3) competition is good

One day, boundaries will be a thing of the past. One day it will be (even more) absurd for companies to find ways of artificially charging (their best) customers. And frankly – and you are right if you think I am getting a little annoyed here – we all know that ultimately competition is the way forward.

The fact that large companies can buy time by bullying regulators -- while they get their shops in order before the smaller players start eating their lunch -- is just downright wrong.

Let us, the people/customer, assume our historical role and tear down the walls of artificial roaming charges and watch in awe and horror as – well – for a month or two, if that, the large companies complain about how unfair life is.

Then watch in even more awe and horror as they change directions and start making more and more money because, while overseas, it costs their best customers (and their roaming partners’ best customers) no more to use their smartphones than it does at home – and so their customers start doing just that.