Orange has lots of posters at Heathrow telling travellers how they’re making roaming easier by having uniform charges so that you don’t have to search around for the cheapest network, and being part of something called the FreeMove Alliance.

But so much for all that, because the EU, in a display of astonishing arrogance, has decided to fuck up everybody’s business models.

They want to reduce roaming charges by 50% (actually by nearly 100% if you consider the implications of the update, below).  What business is it of theirs?  These are people who would (as I observed here) divide the world into managers, other white collar workers, manual workers, house people, self-employed people, artists, farmers, media people, students, researchers, public service people, local/regional authority people, those seeking work and retired people.  Presumably, the idiotic thinking goes, most of those groups would like cheaper roaming charges, therefore we simply must intervene.  Can’t have a free market deciding something as important to white collar workers and local and regional authorities as how much international phone bills cost.  Never mind hard working people in the telecoms industry, people who made international mobile phone calls possible in the first place.  Never mind people who have invested in these companies (presumably many of them retired pensioners).  We must act for the Greater Good!

The BBC quotes the dispicable EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding:  “It is high time that the EU’s internal market delivered substantially lower communication charges for consumers and business people travelling abroad,” she whines.  I can just imagine her shrill, indignant old hag’s voice.  “I therefore propose that an EU regulation be used to eliminate all unjustified roaming charges.”  Unjustified according to who?  Earth calling Viviane Reding:  Any amount someone wants to charge for their services is justified if they say it is.  If you don’t want to pay for it, tough shit, you can’t have it.

“A mobile phone customer should not be charged a higher tariff just because he is travelling abroad.”  And what, because she thinks so, so shall it be?  Who asked her anyway?  I certainly didn’t.  I didn’t even ask for an “Information Society and Media Commissioner”, whatever the hell that is supposed to be.  Did anyone?  I doubt it.  Judging by how governments inexorably grow,  one of Ms. Reding’s friends probably had some leftover budget.  Either that or some moron civil servants were sat around at a brainstorming session.  “I know what we could do: everyone write down 10 job title ideas for comissioners.  Ooh, ‘Information Society’?  That’s a good one, Julian, sounds all modern and PC at the same time.  I think it would be better if we could fit ‘media’ in there somewhere, though.”  That must be it.  I can’t imagine people writing to their MP’s demanding, “we need an Information Society and Media Commissioner and we need one now!  P.S. These mobile phone bills are just killing us!”

There is nothing European politicians can leave alone.  Viviane Reding and her ilk are vermin.  They are power-crazed, thieving meddlers and the sooner we are rid of them the better.

And, just for the record, I don’t work in the telecoms industry, and I will probably save money if these regulations come to pass.  I don’t care.  I don’t want little thugs running around trying to save me money.

Update:  You can send your opinions on the proposed regulations, which would mean, “it would no longer be permissible for operators to levy charges on end customers receiving calls while roaming in the EU. Moreover, callers originating calls in the home country should not face any additional charge as a result of this provision”, to the public consultation.

Update 2:  Here is the email I sent to the public consultation:

To the European Commission:

I am a private individual with no interest in the telecommunications industry.  I am, however, astonished at the arrogance of the proposed regulation of international roaming.

These regulations should not exist in any form.  There can be no moral justification for interfering in the business models of the enterprising people who have put great ingenuity and hard work into making international mobile phone calls possible.

Futhermore, the regulations as proposed are idiotic and short-sighted.  Consider, “it would no longer be permissible for operators to levy charges on end customers receiving calls while roaming in the EU. Moreover, callers originating calls in the home country should not face any additional charge as a result of this provision”.

Any rational phone user would simply ask a recipient in his home country to call back.  These regulations would therefore remove nearly all revenue from international roaming.  This revenue will have to be made up elsewhere, and the regulations will fail to achieve even their own stated ends.

I regret that I am forced by taxation to contribute to the funding of the office of the Information Society and Media Commissioner.

Yours faithfully,
Rob Fisher,
London,
UK.

Posted by Rob Fisher as Authorised Theft at 1:25 PM EDT

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