Pinky and the Brain were consulted, and you can rest assured they were both highly supportive of Clearwire's latest initiative. Announced today in cooperation with Russia's Yota and Japan's UQ Communications, Clearwire has banged out a memorandum of understanding with the aforesaid WiMAX carriers that "identifies the objectives and activities each operator will perform towards the realization of establishing WiMAX roaming between the [two]." With translators in tow, the trio are hoping to define and institute the necessary processes that'll ensure devices from each carrier works on the other's network, and while American's probably couldn't care less about these two operators in particular, it's the thought that counts. Just imagine -- 4G global roaming at a decent price point. That, friends, is the future.

Networks in the GSMA's technology path have an easier time roaming around the world (whether pricing is easy on the wallet is another story altogether) -- but naturally, you've got to have the roaming agreements in place to make the globetrotting a reality. Up in Canada, Bell's wasting now time getting those deals lined up so that customers are good to go the moment it flips the switch and lights up its brand-spanking-new HSPA network as it makes the transition from CDMA; specifically, it's announced during its second quarter earnings call that it has hooked up with AT&T for a symbiotic relationship that'll let Bell customers roam on AT&T's network and vice versa. Interestingly, the agreement allows Bell's phones to roam both on HSPA and legacy GSM in the States while AT&T customers will be strictly HSPA when they're on Bell, reinforcing two things: one, Bell's likely lined up to be North America's first commercial UMTS network without legacy compatibility, and two, Bell's phones -- at least some of them -- will rock GSM / EDGE for use abroad (we should certainly hope so).

[Via MobileSyrup]

Rural and regional carriers have been looking for the FCC to bring down the hammer on compulsory roaming from the big players for years now, and in light of the recent investigations into potential anti-competitive practices, Verizon's throwing yet another bone in an apparent effort to be on its best behavior while the scrutiny continues. This time around, the company is proposing that a law be put in effect requiring it to offer smaller carriers two years of guaranteed roaming contracts in areas where those smaller carriers own spectrum but haven't yet built out their network, with certain situations entitling them to a third year. The regionals weren't happy with the handset exclusivity compromise and they don't appear to be happy with this deal, either -- Leap, owner of Cricket, has already come out and complained that Verizon need roaming contracts "over two decades as it built out its network and acquired competitors" and is only offering a couple years in return, so this battle may be far from over.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Who needs cheap roaming when you've got free roaming? It's funny how much crap the GSMA has given the European Union over its law-bound roaming caps for carriers, only to have Vodafone UK turn around and wipe roaming charges off the map altogether. From June 1 through August 31, subscribers who opt into the carrier's Vodafone Passport service pay home rates for voice calls from 35 European countries plus Australia and New Zealand; afterwards, they'll pay 75p to connect, which still seems reasonable if you make a few very long, droning calls (say, boring but obligatory corporate teleconferences). Unfortunately, data roaming's still more expensive than it should be -- but we suppose you could try doing some HSCSD if you were the enterprising type.

[Via MobileBurn]

The EU's latest proposal to cap roaming costs among its member nations on a tiered multi-year plan passed with flying colors before Parliament this week, meaning the deal goes into law effective July 1. There's a lot of push-back on this one from the GSMA -- makes sense, considering they represent carriers -- and concern that affected carriers will respond by simply raising domestic rates to counterbalance the lost revenue, but ultimately, it seems the powers that be are rolling the bones in the hopes that this works out in consumers' best interests. Telecoms commish Viviane Reding says roaming texts could drop in cost by a solid 60 percent, so yeah, we'd say that's a win.

In Europe? Want cheaper international roaming? Of course you do -- if you don't you're either a carrier or a sick puppy -- and it looks like you just might get your wish. Members of the European Parliament have agreed in principle to reducing the caps on international voice, text, and data roaming to €0.43 per outgoing minute, €0.19 per incoming minute, €0.11 each, and €1.00 per MB wholesale, respectively, on July 1 of this year. Voice minutes further reduce to €0.39 / €0.15 and €0.35 / €0.11 on July 1 of 2010 and 2011, while data ends up as low as €0.50 per MB in two years from now. Furthermore, carriers will be required by law to warn customers when they get close to hitting 50 worth of data roaming, at which point they'll need to consciously agree to bust the cap -- by SMS, for example -- otherwise they'll automatically be cut off to prevent insane, unexpected bills. If all goes according to plan, the proposal will be brought to a full vote next month.

Good news, Europe. Telefónica and Vodafone have just made public a milestone pan-European agreement that will enable the two to share network infrastructure in Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK, with detailed discussions ongoing in the Czech Republic. The collaboration will supposedly deliver efficiencies of hundreds of millions of pounds for each company over ten years, and for customers of each, they can look forward to better coverage across each of those nations. Oh, and subscribers should also expect rates to remain lower compared to what would happen if each operator were forced to build out individually, but it's not like either of these guys are coming out and saying that. At any rate, we figure there's some serious celebration in order for those in the region, no?

While we've seen some pretty novel advances in the SIM card space, few have rivaled this in terms of sheer functionality. In a beautiful effort to cut down on roaming charges, GeoSIM has just announced that it's preparing a Dual IMSI SIM that will initially include a US and UK phone number, making it remarkably easy for those who travel frequently between American and the United Kingdom to call back and forth without racking up absurd roaming charges. We can only assume that future cards will enable any two countries (or more, maybe?) to be programmed in, and while we're still not totally clear on what the fees will actually be while using this card, we're kosher for now just knowing they'll be lower.

[Via Boy Genius Report]

While waiting for a Caribbean cruise liner to set sail from the Port of Miami last November, a Chicago native with an AT&T wireless card and Slingbox decided to catch the Bears vs. Lions football game on his laptop. The end result? A $28,067.31 bill from for international data charges, despite the ship never leaving the harbor. Apparently the card was picking up a signal it shouldn't have, and while the bill was eventually dropped to $290.65 after a considerable number of calls to customer service, let that be a warning to mobile users traveling on the fringe of international roaming areas -- and in case you were wondering, the Bears ended up winning 27 to 23.

[Via The Register]

Okay G1 owners, so here's the end-all answer to your data roaming quandaries. For those not caught up, there has been quite the hubbub going around about the G1's inability to not suck down data whilst traveling aboard. Allegedly, the handset would continue to digest pricey bits and bytes overseas even after users had selected that data roaming be disabled. Now, T-Mobile has issued an official response (posted in full after the break) to clear things up, and the gist of it is this: for users with a bone stock G1, the "Off" selection in data roaming should work fine, but third-party applications can essentially override this command and wreak havoc on one's phone bill. From the horse's mouth: "Some third-party applications available for download on Android Market require access to the internet and have the ability to turn on data roaming when in use. Customers are informed whether an application will use this feature prior to downloading, but should also be aware when traveling outside the country."

The intarwebz have been ablaze with unruly individuals kicking up all sorts of dust about the G1's apparent inability to disable data roaming when traveling overseas, and now a fix is in effect for those in the UK. According to an official tidbit from T-Mobile UK: "In order to ensure that customers do not incur unexpected costs, roaming is disabled on new UK G1 models; there is an option which allows users to enable roaming, but when this is selected the user will receive a message to confirm that there will be additional costs incurred." That whole "new UK G1 models" has us curious about the "old" models, but hopefully those newfangled firmware updates brought along this functionality -- anyone care to hop a flight and see?

[Via modmyGphone, thanks neerhaj]

Verizon just put the finishing touches on an international data plan rework back in August, but it's now gearing up to offer a pair of roaming options for those without a smartphone / PDA phone. Starting November 16th, VZW customers who own a down-to-Earth dumbphone will be able to pay $19.99 per month for 10MB of international data or $29.99 per month for 20MB; the plan will allow users to access picture / video messaging, Visual Voicemail, mobile IM, BREW downloads or the world wide web. Of course, this cheaper data only works in VZW's list of Preferred Data Coverage countries, which includes just Bermuda, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Saipan, Guam and South Korea. Wait, is that GSM we hear laughing in the corner? Oh, it is.

Just because MetroPCS' unsolicited advances to Leap got rejected doesn't mean it can't check its damaged ego at the door long enough to get some other business put away. The two regionals sat down recently to hammer out a pretty comprehensive package of collaboration, throwing in a new 10-year roaming agreement, a spectrum swap whereby Leap gets coverage in San Diego, Fresno, Seattle, and parts of Washington and Oregon while MetroPCS picks up Dallas / Fort Worth plus some Louisiana and Florida territory, and a mutual agreement to drop any pending litigation against one another. Can't you just feel the love in the air?

That crazy hybrid satellite / terrestrial mobile phone network being erected by start-up TerreStar just got a nice boost by signing a reciprocal roaming agreement with a rather sizable partner: a scrappy little carrier going by the name AT&T. Recent releases on TerreStar's site indicate that its first satellite won't be ready to launch until April of next year -- a bit of a delay from the end of 2008 estimate they'd been suggesting before -- but at least they'll be riding on the coattails of a nice, fat footprint on the ground when the time comes to flip the switch.

Seems like every time we're out of the States, we find ourselves fighting an overwhelming urge to whip out our phones every five to ten minutes, restore our cleverly disabled data APNs, and submit to the kind of punishment that only international data roaming can deliver. Giving into those kinds of urges can quickly lead to bills in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, thanks to data roaming packages that have historically been very weak and involve some insanely meager monthly allowance followed by a per-kilobyte fee high enough to make even the hardened business traveler beg for mercy. Seems AT&T and Verizon are both finally realizing that faster data speeds and more capable phones mean that users want at least a few fleeting moments with those services while abroad, though, introducing a series of new packages that should make roaming just marginally more palatable. For its part, AT&T's new offerings include a $60 add-on smartphone plan for 50MB in 67 countries around the globe -- up from 41 previously -- and another that bundles 5GB of domestic laptop data plus 200MB internationally for a sobering $230. On the Verizon side, the big news is a $130 laptop plan that gives users 5GB in the US and Canada, plus 100MB in Mexico and a handful of other countries for $20 per megabyte. In other words, you still need this service to justify the cost, but at least it won't put you as deeply into the poor house as it did last month. No YouTubing from China, y'hear?