"original" <willysnout@rcn.com> wrote in message news:<bcv32s$4jh$1@bob.news.rcn.net>...
> By the way, this is frustrating! I thought the whole point of a common Euro
> GSM standard was to facilitate easy roaming. And I thought the point of
> having in European Union was to improve economic efficiency. But someone
> forgot to tell the cellular carriers. Roaming looks like a real ripoff
> compared with the rates in the US, which is geographically much larger and
> has several air interfaces.

Are you comparing national roaming with international one? Also are
you comparing European Prepaids with U.S. post paids? Prepaids often
do
not support roaming. As I undertand this is because there is delay on
the billing in roaming and if the account is overused, the operator
has
no-one to send the bill. On normal connections the roaming is
supported.
Typical costs in Europe are around one euro/minute to make calls and
around
half of that to receive. Also I bet GSM is used by much larger area
than U.S. systems are. The G in GSM stands for Global.

As to the high costs in Europe. In Finland costs minimum of about
40 euros a year to keep a mobile phone and first year can be free.
This does not include the calls you make but you can have up to
150 euros worth of free calliting time (for national calls) also.
On the other hand a landline costs about 100 euros more per year
to keep, again not including calls.

Osmo