Macau Matters | Macau’s incredible telecom data roaming rip-off

Richard Whitfield

Telecom service providers in Macau are blatantly ripping off their customers with usurious data roaming charges and I cannot understand why the Bureau of Telecommunications Regulation has let this situation come about, and why it is permitted to continue. I also do not understand why other telecom regulators around the world permit similar situations to continue – why aren’t operating licenses being strongly renegotiated?
As well as over 850 minutes of local voice calls, my local mobile telephone service plan gives me 2GB of local data each month. Even if voice calls are free, this is equivalent to a data charge of MOP0.06/MB, and if I go over my 2GB limit extra data usage is only charged at the rate of MOP0.10/MB.
I have just returned from a holiday trip to the USA and Canada and I have just received a bill of MOP1,859 for “international data roaming charges” where we are talking about less than 14MB of data usage in total. My local telecom service provider is happily telling me that their international data roaming charges are MOP0.14/kB, or over 1,300 times the local data rate charge and they do not seem to think that this is a rip-off!
By comparison, I seem to have paid less than MOP10/minute for my international roaming voice calls. If my mobile phone plan is entirely for voice calls, I am charged the equivalent of about MOP0.15/minute for local calls, so that these international roaming voice calls are charged at a rate of about 70 times the local voice call rate – only 5 percent of the difference between local and international roaming data charges.
Usury is normally defined as an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest and I consider that charging 1,300 times the local rate for international data roaming certainly fits this definition. While it is less objectionable, I also believe that charging 70 times the local voice call rate for international roaming voice calls also fits this definition.
To put this in context, a McDonald’s hamburger in Macau costs me about MOP30, and these international charges are the equivalent of McDonald’s in Macau charging me MOP2,100 (at the voice call rate) or MOP39,000 (at the data rate) for a hamburger delivered to me by McDonald’s in the USA because I am a tourist travelling there, while USA locals are paying USD3-5 for their hamburgers.
People, might argue that this is a case of “caveat emptor” – let the buyer beware – and that international telecoms charges are well known to be expensive, and people can buy temporary SIM cards when they are travelling. However, usury is not the same as expensive – usury is illegal and people go to jail for it. And these roaming charge rates are clearly usury!
It is also totally unacceptable for my Macau telecom service provider to happily tell me that the high cost is because that is what they must pay the USA telecom company that provides the roaming – I am their customer and why haven’t they negotiated a much better international roaming deal for me? Why are they so happy for other companies to rip off their customers?
This whole situation raises the very serious question of how much tourists visiting Macau are being charged for international data roaming while they are here? If tourists to Macau are not being charged these rates, why are local residents being charged them when they travel outside of Macau? If tourists to Macau are being charged comparable rates then this is causing very serious damage to Macau’s reputation as a tourist destination. Is it acceptable for local telecom companies to do such damage to Macau’s reputation as a tourism destination – I say it is totally unacceptable.