If people are currently paying roaming costs, then the earnings are clearly merited. You might find the practice distasteful, and wish it did not exist, but that does not make it illegitimate; they found something the market would pay for, and successfully got the market to pay for it.
There's no monopoly on cell carriers, as evidenced by the three separate carriers mentioned just in the sentence you quoted.
Ok, first, there is an oligopoly of cell phone carriers: you don't actually have enough for it to be a free market. Second, you likely don't want there to be enough real carriers(i.e. with their own towers), for there to be a free market. That would involve massive amounts of wasted infrastructure. Thankfully, third, because of those infrastructure costs, it's unlikely you'd ever see that many cell phone carriers. Cell phone infrastructure isn't quite a natural monopoly[0], but it's close.
I normally agree with free market comments like the one above. The problem with cellular is that companies use a shared public resource. We the public grant monopolies to various frequencies for a fee. Even though a company paid the fee, it still remains a public resource and can fall under additional regulation.
Now, there could be argument that the public should not change the rules after the fact or whenever we feel like it. Instead review the contracts every 5 years or so and make changes then.
The fact that this was downvoted shows people on HN don't understand how the free market works. Adding more and more regulation only makes things worse for the end paying customer. Good luck.
You are right, some people on HN don't under stand how free markets work. Here[0][1], maybe after reading those, you will be one step closer to not being one of them.
Yes, that's why in the strictly regulated European telecom market consumers are systematically better off than Americans when it comes to cable, mobile, internet etcetera.
And not just on lower prices and better service, but actually more freedom and choice.
Cross-border roaming was the last thing that was still unregulated. Other than that, Europe is a telecommunications paradise for businesses and consumers compared to the US.
As far as I know, the US market is heavily regulated, with providers successfully suing municipalities and preventing them from building competing services.
The regulation here in the UK to force BT to allow other ISPs to use their infrastructure seems to have worked well - now most people have a large number of ISPs competing for their business (including BT). A quick check suggests I have at least 15 ISPs competing for my business with all manner of deals and packages - sounds pretty much like a healthy marketplace to me.
Adding more and more regulation only makes things worse for the end paying customer.
This is simply not universally true. The cell market doesn't exist without regulation. If any company can throw up a tower on any frequency and start a cell company the end paying customer is going to have a horrible experience.
like the wifi market? Oh right, open spectrum laws actually create useful services for consumers.
It is a fallacy to believe that frequency regulation is needed for services to come to market. Coopetition does happen in the real world (see all the devices made for open spectrum like 2.4ghz)
You can make a similar argument about any market. It's so much easier to believe the intuitive bs that the state can just control everything and keep prices down for everyone.
I'm outta here I just thought the userbase here would be less liberal.
If only there was some way to look at reality and see what can happen when government regulation is applied in the telecoms industry. If only there was some way you could read the posts above that give solid examples of where government regulation has forced competition to the massive benefit of consumers.
Have fun back at your anti-vaccination ultra-Christian extreme right-wing shill site, paid for by the Koch brothers in the hope that poor people will keep voting against their own interests (yup, we can say emotional trigger-words instead of presenting facts as well, just like you can!)
Large areas of EU policy show that this isn't the case. There's a valid "regulation is hard on small businesses" argument, but it doesn't apply to telcos, which are necessarily giant businesses. This sort of market is very prone to "gotcha" fees resulting in unexpected huge bills, and the EU has so far done an OK job of controlling them.
Do tell. I'd love you to explain this in detail instead of just snarking and running like all the other "free market über alles" folks infesting this thread.
Nah, they understand. They common trend on this site and a few other techy sites I frequent is the same, something for nothing. If a megacorp is making money it can surely stand to not make so much.
The very reasons to maintain some form of roaming charges comes down to, who built the towers? Who invested in the hardware, software, and persons, working to provide the service? I do not care one wit about this claim "public resources" when it comes to cell phones? Why not? Because it is a patent excuse to take. The same excuse is used when people want specific speech censored from the airwaves but not another. However, hell and high water reign should the same taking be done to something techies hold near and dear to their hearts, you would never see them support taking of speech rights or such with regards to their blogs, sites, and whatnot.
Back to roaming charges. Should we not then force nation states to not charge access fees to their networks? Many do. They charge carriers for calls going into their state owned agencies.
Simply put, don't allow roaming charges and costs will be spread to anyone using a cell phone, whether they roam or not. You cannot legislate away costs, you certainly can profit, but I guess the private investor should have known better. Kind of like government bonds, they are only really guaranteed the day they are written
If people are currently paying roaming costs, then the earnings are clearly merited. You might find the practice distasteful, and wish it did not exist, but that does not make it illegitimate; they found something the market would pay for, and successfully got the market to pay for it.
There's no monopoly on cell carriers, as evidenced by the three separate carriers mentioned just in the sentence you quoted.