FCC states:
roaming: In cellular technology (mobile telephone technology), the use of a wireless telephone outside a specified tariffed geographic area defined by the service provider (which area is usually called the "home" area); outside of the home area, additional charges usually apply.Wikipedia has a much more holistic approach:
Roaming is a general term in wireless telecommunications that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered.Since now, mobile operators have been quiet about roaming charges. In several cases, roaming charges have been 3000% higher than the national standard. Considering that operators pay each other a very small portion of these charges (Inter-Operator Tariff) one can think what profits can rise from roaming. In certain regions where high profile roaming is usual, a new base station can achieve Return of Investment (ROI) within a couple of months. The cost of a base station is in the region of hundreds of thousands of € or $ so one can think of how much revenue these services bring to the mobile operator.
Especially with data roaming, it has been reported that thousands of dollars have been charged because notebook computers chose to update software when connected to a mobile network (without the user noticing).
EU regulation is now starting to take place as most mobile operators have already conformed with the proposed initiative. They have been very quiet about it too.
In several areas, roaming accounts up to 10% of mobile operator revenues and most of these revenues are currently voice-related. Data revenues are expected to increase over the coming years but data roaming charges have to become transparent to the end user.
Update: Although Eurotariff has already been launched pretty much across Europe, regulation for SMS and data is not part of EU regulations! The EU will monitor high SMS and data charges and expects operators to drop prices voluntarily!
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