Roaming Revised

If we drive a half hour east, we are out of Belgium and into another country. Having my cell phone with me can get pretty costly.  Roaming charges apply.  In the same way Americans crossing into Canada or Mexico. Except we are "out of the country" with a half hour drive.

Although the charges have been reduced by nearly half since we arrived in 2009, they still exist and they add up quickly.  So I always keep my phone set to avoid these charges which also means I don't call, email, text or "google" anything.

Every time we cross a border into another country (the buitenland) I get this text message from our carrier, Proximus . . .

Proximus-info: in het

buitenland, bellen naar

een EU-land kost 23

cent/min, gebeld worden

6 cent/min., een sms sturen

7 cent, een sms ontvangen

is gratis.  Tarieven incl. btw.

Yes, texts and phone bills and electricity bills and parking tickets and groceries, and everything else . . . comes in Dutch!

In English, that text reads "abroad, calling another EU country will cost me 23 cents per minute, receiving a call costs me 6 cents per minute, sending a text message is 7 cents and receiving a text is free and these prices have the tax already included.

That text is always followed immediately by this one . . .

Proximus-info: in het
buitenland, surfen op
internet kost 24 cent/MB.
Een mms sturen/ontvangen:
24 cent.  Tarieven incl. btw.
Info: 6000 (gratis) of
www.proximus.be/roaming.
In geval van nood: bel 112
(gratis).

In English, that says "abroad, surfing the internet will cost me 24 cents per megabyte, an MMS, sent and received: 24 cents, and the tax is included.  I can call the number 6000 (for free!) to get more information. And last, but not least, in case of emergency, call 112 (also free!).  Thanks for that.

That doesn't sound like much, but if my phone is "roaming", it's "roaming" all the time, not just when I'm using it to "google" something . . . so rather than try to figure all this out, I just keep my phone off! :-(

Well, all that's about to change.  Not immediately, because that would be too easy.  But in a couple of years.  Mobile phone companies will no longer be allowed to charge roaming fees to their customers when they are in another European country. The agreement, years in the making and finally reached this week, will make these fees a thing of the past come June 2017.  Finally.

And the commission was also savvy enough to include a clause in the contract to ensure these companies don't charge the customer in some other way to recoup that lost roaming charge revenue.

So if we were are here for two more winters, I can "google" and text from France or Germany or somewhere else in Europe, the following summer for no more than it costs me right here at home . . . with my fancy new phone that does everything but laundry.