roaming fees

reuters has this article:

TORONTO, April 29 Reuters) - Rogers Communications Inc (RCIb.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday swine flu could dent revenue at its wireless unit if travel restrictions prevent its mobile phone subscribers from ringing up costly roaming charges.

"To the extent that we see the swine flu accelerate, I think we can expect to see some softening in roaming revenues," Rob Bruce, the head of the Canadian company's wireless division, told analysts.

It seems to me that if this is going to make a major dent in revenue, then it is clear the roaming fees are way to high.

Comments

michael lewis said…
Roaming fees are high, no doubting that fact. Typically, the full price is ~ $4 per minute for a voice call, ~ $3 - $4 / MB of data, and 60¢ per SMS message sent to Canada, 85¢ per SMS sent to anywhere outside of Canada. Of course, there are options and packages available which reduce these fees, usually to the $1 / minute or MB level. But still, that's outrageously expensive.

My advice for anyone who will travel abroad: UNLOCK YOUR GSM DEVICE!

After unlocking your device, simply purchase a pre-paid SIM from a local carrier in whatever country you'll be visiting.

But yeah, it seems odd that they would specifically target swine flu as a cause for lost revenue, because people won't be travelling, and roaming, as much.
1:25 PM
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