Opinion: Affordable Roaming “Basic Tool” of “Interconnected World”

Thursday, 16 June 2011 | by Pat's Picks

On my recent trip to India, I used every trick possible to minimize my data use, and it still cost me a couple hundred bucks. This morning, international roaming fees are the topic on the New York Times’ editorial page. Based on data from a new study, it appears that expensive roaming fees have nothing to do with the actual cost of sending data. Instead, they reflect the fact that there’s very little competition in the cross-border phone market. The Times says that’s unacceptable: ” Roaming is not a niche market. It is a basic tool in an increasingly interconnected world.”

Here’s a link to the study, done by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found that, on average, international roaming costs $6 to $10 per megabyte.