Mobile operators 'completely screwing' their customers on (data) roaming

Link: T-Mobile vows to stop ‘screwing’ data-roaming customers – ZDNet UK

Just in case, …… just in case you thought that ‘they’ — the folk running mobile operators were charging high roaming fees because, well, it was extremely expensive…………. nahhhhhh.

I was sent this as a reminder just now relating to the news that T-Mobile are reducing their data roaming rates by half.

Refreshingly frank comments by Ed Williams, if made part in ‘jest’ 🙂

T-Mobile has promised to cut its overseas data-roaming charges later this year, after one of its senior executives told conference delegates that it is “screwing” its customers at the moment.

The remark was made by the operator’s enterprise strategy head, Ed Williams, at the Mobility Summit in London, during a panel discussion on the subject of mobile data tariffs.

Discussion moderator Chris Lewis, a senior analyst with Ovum, asked Williams if, despite T-Mobile’s £8.50 “all-you-can-eat” data tariff for usage within the UK, the operator still “screws” its customers on data roaming.

“Completely screw them, yes,” was Williams’ response.

Williams, who is also a director of the Mobile Data Association, told ZDNet UK on Tuesday that his comment was “made in jest”. He also revealed that T-Mobile will be lowering its data-roaming tariffs later in 2006.

It’s not yet clear exactly what T-Mobile is planning, but another company executive, senior pricing manager Uday Kansara, later told the conference that T-Mobile is planning to bring its consumer rates down “as the costs come down”..