Are Operators Thieves

Ilpo Mattila accuses operators of thieving (Helsingin Sanomat 10.7.2010). He is fed up with expensive dataroaming prices despite recently anounced price caps by the European union (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/roaming/regulation/index_en.htm).

Technically speaking operators are not stealing, but if users start to rebel and with pressure coming from the EU, operators will have to reconsider their strategy or they risk to loose both brand value and market share.

One of the problems with operators is that they do not understand the business they are in and in particular they do not understand how and why the business model will change when migrating from telephony to data applications. There is a fundamental reason for the existence of flat rate data plans and why flat rate will spread. You might want to look at my YouTube video in which I argue the logic of flat rate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIiBPil4tKI)

I believe that international dataroaming will also migrate toward flat rate data plans. If the domestic data plan is 20 euro´s per month which is c 0.6 euro per day, I would predict that paying triple price i.e. 2 euro´s per day flat rate, when roaming, would be more than adequate. However it will take some time before the operator world reaches concensus in this, despite pressure from the Eu. In the meanwhile I will allways check that my hotels abroad have inclusive (free) internet and preferably wlan and will use those services instead of the overpriced international dataroaming