On Saturday, October 13, 2001, at 12:29 , Michael Turner wrote:
> And again, I wasn't addressing the transcontinental case, but the
> intercontinental case. Yes, Europe sees a lot of international
> tourism, and this turns into roaming income I'm sure, but a lot
> of that international tourism is European-country-to-European
> country. I.e., transcontinental. And therefore mostly within
> a recognized political unit, which matters for my argument.
>
> As this is the keitai-l list, I am, of course, trying to stay on-topic,
> so I want to know how all this really affects the average Japanese
> mobile phone user. Just as European restaurants often have the
> Japanese-tourist menu, I'm sure some way will be worked out to
> soak the Japanese-tourist phone user. If you wish to pointedly
> avoid the political dimension, we'll be talking past each other
> for a long time, but I think it matters that Japanese people don't
> vote on European political matters. If the EU is litigating
> on roaming, on behalf of European consumer interests, I'm sure
> all parties will find at least one point of agreement: it's OK to
> make as much money as possible from non-EU citizens, with taxes
> not being an option. That leaves service charges.
If you suggest that a consumer roaming service in Europe would have
different tariffs depending on where tourists originate from, I tend to
believe that this is rather unlikely.
This would be similar to a public phone box that would ask for 10 cents
if the user is recognised as European (transcontinental user) and 20
cents if the user is Australian/American/Asian/African (intercontinental
user).
BTW, there is strong relevance to Japan.
A "visited network charges" based roaming service in Europe would (due
to its simplicity and the availability of a GSM/PHS dual handset by NEC)
allow Japanese users to roam seamlessly in Europe at reasonable rates.
This would be a benefit to Japanese consumers but also Japanese business
travellers.
Furthermore, it would allow Japanese manufacturers to gain ground in the
GSM handset market, as GSM/PHS handsets would eventually have a raison
d'etre.
This would be even more so, if Asian GSM operators also start to offer
"visited network charges" based roaming, because most Asian countries
have adopted PHS as cordless technology allowing operators there to
provide a low cost GSM/PHS based cordless-to-wireless roaming facility
(which is not possible in the traditional model without constructing
complex and expensive IN based VPN services).
> [enormous commentary of questionable keitai relevance, snipped]
Who had asked for reasons why "visited network charges" is bound to
result in cheaper tariffs in the first place ? Also, as you may have
realised reading the "keitai-irrelevant" description of the "VN charges"
model that the concept is universally applicable and not confined to GSM.
In principle it could be used to provide UMTS based consumer roaming or
even PDC/GSM or PDC/UMTS roaming or whatever other combination would be
relevant to the Japanese market place.
rgds
benjamin
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Received on Fri Oct 12 19:20:22 2001