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You know what really boils my peanuts? I can't take a trip anywhere without being charged

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where the sun don't shine with roaming fees.

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Even though calling home or sending a text is an incredibly trivial matter

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from a technical perspective. I mean, I could hop on Facebook Messenger right now

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and have a voice conversation with my homeboy in Italy for absolutely no additional charge, zero.

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But if I flew to Rome and tried to use my data connection,

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I'd get a bill that might make my mortgage payment look like chump change.

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Seriously, a few years ago, a guy traveling to Mexico on business

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got a bill of over $275,000 just for streaming a hockey game.

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What possible reason could your carrier have for charging so much?

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Okay, so get this. Even though the bill you get might have the name of your home wireless carrier on it,

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the responsibility for this kind of price gouging ultimately lies with whatever foreign carrier

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owns the network that you were using. And it used to be the case

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that the logistics of providing roaming service were a little more difficult for mobile carriers.

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During the earlier part of the 2000s, it was difficult for them to track just how many minutes

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or how much data was being used as communication between networks wasn't very good.

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So these logistical issues made it a lot more tempting for mobile carriers

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to try and recoup any losses by jacking up prices.

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But these days, improvements in technology have made it such that it's really easy

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for mobile networks in Australia to talk to one in the US, for example,

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when someone travels between the two countries. So why are we still paying so much?

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Part of the issue is the way deals are done between providers from different countries.

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You see, if you use a major carrier in your home country,

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they probably have dozens or even hundreds of contracts

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in place with foreign providers. These are all negotiated individually.

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And although it doesn't cost very much more to connect a call across the world

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than it does in the same city, foreign carriers have no incentive

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to charge reasonable prices to folks who are roaming. And the home carrier doesn't want to make it super cheap

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to roam on their own networks as a foreign carrier could then swoop in and undercut them,

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potentially siphoning off for local customers. For example, if a US carrier was able to offer

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extremely cheap roaming across the border in Canada, a Canadian user might just buy a US cell service

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and permanently roam in Canada on a Canadian company's cell towers.

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Making matters worse, many countries only have a very small handful of major carriers servicing them.

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Think about how the US mobile market is essentially a four-way dance

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between Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. This means that when a carrier

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picks an out-of-country roaming partner, they may only have one or two choices,

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making it difficult to negotiate a good deal for the home country's customers.

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And unlike at home, where you can pick between at least two or three providers,

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you're just gonna automatically connect to whoever the foreign partner network is

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when your plane lands abroad. So there's no consumer choice when you're roaming overseas.

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The result is that your home carrier gets charged a huge amount for access

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to the foreign network, even though the actual cost that the foreign carrier has to bear isn't very high.

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And of course, that gets passed on to us,

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the hapless consumers. And because carriers view international roaming

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as a luxury that's more often used by business customers

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who will just have their company foot the bill, it's hard to see them cutting us a break anytime soon.

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Now, of course, there are certain ways around this. If you have access to Wi-Fi where you're going,

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you could just make voice over IP calls over like WhatsApp

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or the aforementioned Facebook Messenger, or you could offer buying a local or traveler SIM card

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or even a cheap pay-as-you-go phone. Alternatively, many major carriers

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offer temporary travel packages that will give you limited access overseas

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at much more reasonable rates. And in all cases, you're trading in the convenience

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of having your phone simply work as soon as you get through customs

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for not having to pay a frickin' kidney just to check Twitter.

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Ah! Okay, calm down now. Thanks for watching, guys. Like the video, subscribe to our channel

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and hit us up in the comments for any suggestions that you might have for future videos.