Three’s UK boss, Kevin Russell, has laid into roaming charges for using your phone for internet and email abroad, labelling the practice “stupid” and “ludicrous”, and hinting at a consumer campaign to abolish it.
The EU and big phone networks are slowly starting to see sense about the merits of not charging an arm and a leg for phone calls made abroad, but with charges as high as £3 per megabyte abroad, flicking on push email on your mobile or even just loading a few web pages on the continent is dancing with death, or a three digit phone bill at least.
But Three UK’s CEO signalled he wants to put an end at a speech to journalists in London this morning, when he showed the disparity between data rates in the UK and abroad (£15 for 5GB on average in Blighty, but a whopping £6,250 in the EU) in a slide (pictured), and called the practice “stupid”.
Vodafone abolishes roaming charges
“This is just stupid…I don’t think there’s anyone who can stand up and credibly support this,” he said. “I don’t want customers using 5GB in the UK for £15 in the UK then going over and spending thousands in the EU. It’s just wrong. The rates just now are silly, they need to be addressed…and sooner rather than later. Voice roaming is silly, data is ludicrous.”
We asked Russell about what Three proposes to do to change the situation, and were told it plans to campaign both in the UK and in Brussels to change EU legislation, and may start up a consumer campaign similar to the one both Three and BT headed to reduce costs to connect landlines to mobiles.
“We can lobby as much as we can into Brussels, we can try and educate as many people as possible in the UK. Whether we can campaign as we’ve done with Terminate The Rate to make it a genuine British concern is something we’ve been thinking about,” he told us.
Three’s opposition to expensive data charges abroad couldn’t be clearer, so it’s good to know that at least one network in the UK will lower its prices as soon as any legal roadblocks are removed – if only that was as easy as lopping digits off a pricetag.
Out TBC | £TBC | Three
