Bon à savoir and Ktipp, two Swiss consumer rights magazines, have organized a petition to ask the government to apply roaming price controls on Swiss telecom operators, similar to the rules the EU has imposed on its operators since 2007. This would set a maximum amount operators could charge for dialled and received calls as well as SMS and data transmission while abroad. All residents of Switzerland, as well as Swiss living abroad, are welcome to sign.

The online petition is at www.bonasavoir.ch, it's in French, and there's a link to the German version.

signed. I wish they also had a petition on exorbitant charges generally. Some people accidentally go over their allotted bandwidth and get a 1k bill in the mail, that's just gouging.

Signed. I thought you had to be Swiss to sign these!

Signed too. Thanks for the mention of the petition

Done. Thanks. I always feel ripped off when using my phone abroad.

The text of the dossier when translated into EN goes like this:



The scandal of roaming

27.04.2011
Europe sets maximum operators of the 27 member states.Nothing like Switzerland, where subscribers pay a price three times higher!

Switzerland is a tiny country where three operators monopolize the mobile network by charging exorbitant prices.Around him, the 27 states of the European Union have managed in less than five years, to limit the appetite of dozens of providers by imposing maximum not to exceed. Find the error!

Just before the holidays, in fact, the European Union will enter the final stage of a fierce battle. Since 1 July 2011, the roaming rates (the subscriber uses his mobile phone abroad) will no longer exceed:

• 0.46 fr. per minute for outgoing calls (called the subscriber);
• 0.14 fr. for an incoming call (the subscriber is called);
• 0.14 fr. for sending an SMS.

Moreover, the wholesale price (the operators charge each other) of data transfer in a smartphone is also 0.65 fr. per Mb at most. For now, the retail price (the one that operators charge customers) is, however, still limited and the European consumer pays, now four to five times more than the wholesale price, significantly too (see table 1 below)!


With these tariffs drastically scaled down, the EU believes that operators would still put the full pockets. Thus, Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner responsible for administration, has repeatedly reminded that the price of a home you are my average to 12.6 ct. and there is no reason for those roaming rates are higher. In other words, the goal is to remove, again, the borders between Member States and to advance to the trap such billing. But once will not hurt, observers are unanimous that reason will prevail and that this will finally indeed the case!


Shocking situation
Therefore, the situation of Swiss customers is even more shocking. They pay, in fact, even today, priced significantly higher than those in 2007 have reacted Brussels! Discerned: Swisscom Demand to 0.85 fr. for a minute call made by a subscriber on vacation in Greece, 0.40 fr. for an incoming call, 0.40 fr. for SMS and 7 Fr. Download 1 MB of data. But his competitors are even worse, because in such cases, up 2 en Orange bill. one minute for an outgoing call and 0.80 fr. for an incoming call. And, in turn, requires up to Sunrise 0.50 fr. for sending an SMS, but fr 15.60. (12 times the wholesale price imposed by the EU in 2010) for downloading 1MB of data.Table 2, fully converted to francs, summarizes the situation.


Sign our petition!
If these rates are not lowered by 1 July 2011, when the EU ceilings will decrease again, the differences will be even greater, reaching heights of outrage. Orange, for example, will charge three times more than European operators a one-minute call from Greece.


Good to know is why, in collaboration with its partner K-tipp speaking, is launching a petition demanding that Switzerland is aligned with the maximum of the EU. Why indeed should we pay two to twenty times more expensive benefits which are known to be highly profitable even with European restrictions?


We invite all our readers to support this by signing (and by signing around them) such petition or using this list cons (printable) or directly on our website, www . bonasavoir.ch .Deadline: May 31 next, so we can pass it before the summer recess to Leuthard, Head of DETEC.


Christian Chevrolet

source URL in FR

Agree roaming prices are a rip off. Since I've bought a smartphone I consequently bought prepaid sim cards when I'm abroad as I don't want to make do with a 'dumb' phone due to me not wishing to go bankrupt with the data roaming costs. I've got an irish and american sim card at home and the next will be from New Zealand. A Sim card with 1gb of data will cost me NZ$ 30 so roughly 20 Fr. Or in swiss phone provider terms the same price as 1.3 MB of roaming data!

Thanks for translating the page. I found it a little hard to do from my phone

Interesting. Roaming is certainly extremly expensive on a Swiss phone. The EU move to standardise roaming rates should be the start of mobile phone operaters offering packages across Europe. This would certainly be good for competition.

Coincidentally, my provider in Ireland announced this week that they would no longer be charging for roaming in the EU, Iceland and Norway. http://www.meteor.ie/do_more/roaming/euro_rates/

Sadly, Switzerland is not included.

Signed! I hope this will go through