The EU is capping mobile roaming charges for calls within EU. Do any of the swiss carriers plan to reduce their costs, or will they ride the gravy train into the stops ?

dave

ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!! ...... good enough answer for you ?

I have regular mobile bills of around 700chf every time we go and work "on the other side" Switzerland has the highest rates for mobile telephony in europe...

It's all arse about face , if the cost of ellectric was as high as the phone bill you would all make certain the lights were out and the standby switches off....

Thank the great spirit that theres SKYPE .. saved my life on tour in the states , i could talk and see the kids at home whilst giging in New york..

I have just cancelled my swisscom renewall contracts and refussed to pay the last bill just to make em think...

tip: mobile calls are like 2 way radios , theres an up & down link switch - Swiss com make money by transmiting data on the closed side of your link - so if your only listening the up side is "off" and they use this to burst bank data and the like - put the radio on in the background or stand in the street and theres too much noise for them to use it...

Am i the only one who needs translation....

I think you're saying the provider is using the bandwidth for which you've paid but not used (because you're both talking at the same time) to carry other traffic ?

You can get some smug satisfaction and frustrate this by introducing some background noise....

dave

when you are not talking, but listening, Swisscom use the "up" channel to broadcast data for free ... if you have background noise, this makes the "up" channel unavailable .... small victories can count ....

Why not just get a Yallo card as a standby?

They have a basic .39 rappen per minute charge to anywhere in Europe. Calls to other Yallo users are charged at .05 Rappen per minute. There is no subscription charge.

They are available in Post Offices, Kiosks or online at www.yallo.ch

Tom, have a look at how much they charge when ROAMING in Europe ???? Am sure it is way over the 39 rapps you mention. That's for calls originating on the Sunrise network & terminating in EU .... hope that doesn't come across as shouting.

Hmmmm..How about using noise reduction filters. I am sure that mobile technology is getting quite advanced and can detect the conversation and noise. Or maybe not

Yallo is limited , not allways available - Lithuania, Latvia, estonia... Hungary , blank spots in Austria .. most of the Vorallberg .... it's network dependent ... we tried it and got frustrated at contstant engaged tones.

I think it works fine if your only concerned with private calls but when it comes to work and client contacts then you have to kinda bite the bullet....

Noise filters yes... but it can only deal with background "line noise" that hissing sound with no daynamic content , the filters and noise gates they use can't deal with dynamics - music - passing cars - barking dogs - if they did set them that high then your phone calls would realy be like using a 2 way radio..

Theres also no truth in the idea of remote listening for key words... for the conspricy fans amoungst you... but I have to be carefull now or I get my 00 lisence taken away

[quote=audiodruid;62120] I have regular mobile bills of around 700chf every time we go and work "on the other side" Switzerland has the highest rates for mobile telephony in europe...

WHAT????Switzerland has the highest rates for mobiles in Europe????

This is crazy...Switzerland has the LOWEST rates in Europe you mean.

doesn't seem so compared to my german work pals.... however we are talking using a swiss com mobile outside of switzerland , i agree at home it's very cheap but as soon as we go outside... woooosh.. big bills the old paying for both ways of the connection for voice and text calls

If it's any consolation, the charges are pretty hight for UK mobile owners, even Orange charge me 70p to make a call and 30p to recieve one.

I bought meself a M-Budget sim card for when I'm in Switz, did a lot of good to my phone bill that!

Got one of the pricing guys to do some comparisons, here are the results on "comparitive" business packages UK calling Switzerland per minute :

Swisscom UK to CH – 1.50 chf

Orange : UK to CH – 1.10 chf

Sunrise : UK to CH – 1.25 chf

so no surprise there then.

At last. Some movement on the roaming charges. After swisscom, lets hope the other networks also cut their rates.

dave

Good news, thanks

Yeah, well you could, and this would make the efficiency of the network much lower and you'd be complaining about all the new towers that are needed to provide the capacity.

The main cost of the operation of a network is the backhaul from the cell-site to the "network core" (I'll leave technical terms out of this). They certainly do use these links to carry all the traffic including data. And if possible, they optimise it, packetise it and give voice the highest quality of service.

Basically, you have paid for a level of service, and all networks on planet (including this one) never deliver full capacity to every subscriber, or you wouldn't be able to afford to use it.

Roaming is thievery though, I got sick of paying €8.50 per minute roaming on e-Plus (germany) in India, especially since they used crappy voice-over-IP circuits through China, and I could never hear anything.