You know what really boils my peanuts? I can't take a trip anywhere without being charged
where the sun don't shine with roaming fees.
Even though calling home or sending a text is an incredibly trivial matter
from a technical perspective. I mean, I could hop on Facebook Messenger right now
and have a voice conversation with my homeboy in Italy for absolutely no additional charge, zero.
But if I flew to Rome and tried to use my data connection,
I'd get a bill that might make my mortgage payment look like chump change.
Seriously, a few years ago, a guy traveling to Mexico on business
got a bill of over $275,000 just for streaming a hockey game.
What possible reason could your carrier have for charging so much?
Okay, so get this. Even though the bill you get might have the name of your home wireless carrier on it,
the responsibility for this kind of price gouging ultimately lies with whatever foreign carrier
owns the network that you were using. And it used to be the case
that the logistics of providing roaming service were a little more difficult for mobile carriers.
During the earlier part of the 2000s, it was difficult for them to track just how many minutes
or how much data was being used as communication between networks wasn't very good.
So these logistical issues made it a lot more tempting for mobile carriers
to try and recoup any losses by jacking up prices.
But these days, improvements in technology have made it such that it's really easy
for mobile networks in Australia to talk to one in the US, for example,
when someone travels between the two countries. So why are we still paying so much?
Part of the issue is the way deals are done between providers from different countries.
You see, if you use a major carrier in your home country,
they probably have dozens or even hundreds of contracts
in place with foreign providers. These are all negotiated individually.
And although it doesn't cost very much more to connect a call across the world
than it does in the same city, foreign carriers have no incentive
to charge reasonable prices to folks who are roaming. And the home carrier doesn't want to make it super cheap
to roam on their own networks as a foreign carrier could then swoop in and undercut them,
potentially siphoning off for local customers. For example, if a US carrier was able to offer
extremely cheap roaming across the border in Canada, a Canadian user might just buy a US cell service
and permanently roam in Canada on a Canadian company's cell towers.
Making matters worse, many countries only have a very small handful of major carriers servicing them.
Think about how the US mobile market is essentially a four-way dance
between Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile. This means that when a carrier
picks an out-of-country roaming partner, they may only have one or two choices,
making it difficult to negotiate a good deal for the home country's customers.
And unlike at home, where you can pick between at least two or three providers,
you're just gonna automatically connect to whoever the foreign partner network is
when your plane lands abroad. So there's no consumer choice when you're roaming overseas.
The result is that your home carrier gets charged a huge amount for access
to the foreign network, even though the actual cost that the foreign carrier has to bear isn't very high.
And of course, that gets passed on to us,
the hapless consumers. And because carriers view international roaming
as a luxury that's more often used by business customers
who will just have their company foot the bill, it's hard to see them cutting us a break anytime soon.
Now, of course, there are certain ways around this. If you have access to Wi-Fi where you're going,
you could just make voice over IP calls over like WhatsApp
or the aforementioned Facebook Messenger, or you could offer buying a local or traveler SIM card
or even a cheap pay-as-you-go phone. Alternatively, many major carriers
offer temporary travel packages that will give you limited access overseas
at much more reasonable rates. And in all cases, you're trading in the convenience
of having your phone simply work as soon as you get through customs
for not having to pay a frickin' kidney just to check Twitter.
Ah! Okay, calm down now. Thanks for watching, guys. Like the video, subscribe to our channel
and hit us up in the comments for any suggestions that you might have for future videos.