We are being looted by the cellphone companies .... robbed ...

[ParkieDem]

28. I generally agree, but

for T-Mobile's international roaming charge, you can blame that on India's telecom for gouging T-mobile. International roaming on US carriers is expensive because the US carrier must use the foreign telecom's towers, network, etc., to deliver messages and calls. Foreign telecoms know that a large chunk of US cell users in their country are there on business, and therefore are likely to be reimbursed for calls, so the charge out the wazoo for US and European customers to use their networks.

As for domestic calls in India, India is known to have the most competitive wireless network system in the world. I don't know the framework or how this developed, but there is MASSIVE competition among Indian wireless carriers, which has driven prices way, way down. A lot if this is due to a large overbuild of the telecom infrastructure in the 1990s. In the last 90s, everybody thought that all Western companies were going to move call centers to India, so they invested billions in that telecom infrastructure. While the call center industry in India has exploded, it hasn't been near on the scale as expected (largely due to backlash from Western customers who hate having calls routed to India). So, you have an overbuilt IT infrastructure that has caused prices to plummet and the number of competitors to multiply. This will get you low, low prices.