Roaming charges for customers of cellular-wireless entrant and incumbent providers

In some countries, cellular wireless roaming charges are prohibitive possibly because the incumbent access-provider is actually or essentially state-run, unlike potential entrants, i.e., the regulator (state) is in a conflict of interest. In other countries, e.g., France, there is a lot of competition among Internet Service (access) Providers (ISPs). Recently, Free purchased a spectrum license to compete in the 4G market. Free is an established discount broadband (wired) ISP likely intending to bundle its existing offerings with cellular wireless. The cellular-wireless incumbents such as Orange disputed Free’s position on roaming charges for its customers while Free builds out its wireless infrastructure and offers highly discounted access rates to attract customers (though Free’s service is quota limited and considered of poorer quality and support, the latter particularly through physical store-fronts) [3]. Orange does lease some of its existing infrastructure to third-party discount providers such as Virgin Wireless (which does not offer bundled services in direct competition with Orange).