Regarding yesterday's post about how T-Mobile gouges its US customers for the use of WiFi when you roam on T-Mobile networks in Europe, an anonymous former employee sez,
I worked for T-Mobile a while back. I had direct involvement with the
links between the various WiFi roaming partners, including the T-Mobile
providers outside of the USA.I can attest to the fact that the gouge for WiFi roaming is a profit
burden, and not much else. There was no new equipment, as most of what
needed to be done for WiFi roaming was simply adding in new networks and
peering partners into the backend. The only real costs associated with
their roaming are the usual monthlies (power, cooling, yaddda yadda) and
bandwidth (almost all links are made using VPN's, -not- long distance
leased circuits. In both cost categories, T-Mobile purchases with the
Costco plan of "buy in bulk and save". It was mostly put in as a
marketing tool to go along with their craptacular "global" (because it
certainly isn't world wide) phone "service". I suppose it's not so much
of a marketing tool these days.
(Thanks, Anonymous Reader!)
