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Ukko Mobile From Helsinki Eliminates Data Roaming

79 点作者 dsarle大约 12 年前

5 条评论

vidarh大约 12 年前
The problem with this, which I learned the hard way with my first startup, is that roaming costs are not high because of some horrible inefficiency in the telco's charging them, but because they all benefit from the status quo.<p>My first company was an ISP, and we thought the then current dial up prices (1995) were insane, and quickly worked out we could offer packages at 25% of the largest competitor and make a profit with only 1500 or so users. Problem was, the largest competitors could <i>also</i> make a profit at 25% of their then-current prices, and had large established user-bases. We were inexperienced enough in business to not worry too much about <i>why</i> their prices were to high - we assumed without thinking that their prices reflected their cost base. Instead it reflected their belief about the market at a time - they'd rather sell at that price with a ridiculous margin, than cut the price and grow the total size of the market.<p>We went in cocky about a big competitive advantage, and it took about 3 days after launch before the incumbent dropped prices to match ours, and while we kept growing, it obviously made things a lot harder.<p>This company might find the same in the mobile data market if they get any traction at all: Many of their competitors can drop the roaming charges massive pretty much over-night, have large warchests, and have roaming agreements in place that can quickly be re-negotiated if they and their partners start seeing this startup as a threat to their revenues. The massive benefit they can provide now, and the seeming headstart they have on their competitors can evaporate pretty much overnight.
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dbuxton大约 12 年前
I use Tru (formerly Truphone) which covers UK, US and Oz, I assume through the sorts of deals that these guys have pulled off.<p>It's a fabulous idea but badly executed (despite the fact that they have raised oodles of VC money) with poor call quality and slow (2G) data speeds. Still, <i>so</i> much easier than buying a SIM in the US. Also, has the wonderful property that you can call someone who is physically in the US on their UK mobile number for free for both parties - for which incoming call (for those of you who don't know how backwards the US cell market is in comparison with regulated Europe) a US cell customer would normally have to pay!<p>That said, if you mainly travel to the US and don't want to deal with T-Mobile or Virgin or whoever, I heartily recommend them.
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jtheory大约 12 年前
This sounded very cool for a minute -- I'm mostly based in France, sometimes the UK, but now I'm in Malaysia for a month, and will be in the US probably later this year for a chunk of time.<p>...but the title was seriously misleading (just Europe, and not even specifying which countries yet); I'm still going to have massive roaming charges if I don't switch SIMs.<p>How hard is it to put "...eliminates European data roaming costs forever"?<p>My current solution is multiple SkypeIn numbers -- you can call me in the US or UK, for example, and either number will forward to my current (local) mobile number, which I don't give out.<p>The only serious flaw with this approach is SMS -- SkypeIn can't accept (and/or forward SMS), even to my Skype account.
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icebraining大约 12 年前
Interesting, but their site seems light on details. Under Coverage, they just have "throughout Europe", which doesn't tell much (Europe is a rather poorly-defined concept).<p>In any case, 40+€ seems expensive unless you travel a lot.
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hatu大约 12 年前
How does Amazon accomplish their free 3G with the Kindle and why aren't they selling this service? <a href="http://client0.cellmaps.com/tabs.html#cellmaps_intl_tab" rel="nofollow">http://client0.cellmaps.com/tabs.html#cellmaps_intl_tab</a>
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