HMG isn't alone with their opposition. According to several reports in the German-speaking media from 25 September (linked below) not a single country has agreed to the EU Commission's proposals for future roaming regulations. France and Italy have even fully rejected Neelie Kroes' plans which are also unlikey to find sufficient support by the Council of the European Union. Members of the European Parliament are cited saying that there is no need to railroad through reforms of the telecoms sector before the upcoming elections to the European Parliament to be held between 22 and 25 May 2014.

http://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrich...Gebuehren.html
http://www.n24.de/n24/Nachrichten/Wi...gebuehren.html
http://www.billiger-telefonieren.de/...nd_133616.html

Interesting. I can understand the UK (Vodafone), France (France Télécom), Germany (Deutsche Telekom) and Spain (Telefónica) objecting, given that they are the home country of most EU multinational mobile networks, but Italy is surprising. On the other hand, it is hardly surprising that no small countries object because the status quo affects them disproportionately.

The opposition from Italy, France and Spain may also be linked to these countries' assymetric roaming volumes (more inbound than outbound roaming) and the absolute high number of inbound roamers which probably generate significant revenues for the local MNOs:
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Italy

I imagine that the networks which stand to lose the most profit from the European Commission's proposals are the home networks, not the visited networks. The visited networks mostly charge a reasonable wholesale price to the home networks (evident from some of the competitive roaming bundles that home networks offer), but it is the home networks who mark up these wholesale prices to unreasonable retail levels, particularly for out-of-bundle prices.

Not being European I did not have a clue about SEPA.

According to: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionar...+Payments+Area

The UK is a part of SEPA.

Yes, the UK is part of SEPA, but GBP is not. Therefore UK banks have to charge cross-border EUR payments in the same way as intra-UK EUR payments, but this doesn't apply to GBP payments. Banks in Sweden on the other hand have to charge cross-border SEK or EUR payments in the same way as intra-Swedish SEK or EUR payments.

The Sydney Morning Herald is tomorrow reporting that Australia and New Zealand are following the European Commission's lead and cracking down on exorbitant roaming charges between the two countries:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...017-2vpej.html

WIK Consult, a German telecoms advisory firm, has studied the Trans-Tasman roaming market for the Australian Government which resulted in the following report published in May 2012:
http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-indus...IK%20Study.pdf
Quite an interesting read as it explains many commercial and technical basics of cellular roaming by also making references to the experiences of European roaming regulation.

Further reports issued by the Australian Government:
http://ris.finance.gov.au/files/2013/02/03-TTMR-RIS.pdf
http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-indus...t%20Report.pdf

http://www.corrierecomunicazioni.it/...ti-i-costi.htm

After all, Italy isn't against Kroes' proposal...

Italian Governmen isn't against it, but Italian operators are, of course! ;)

I think almost every carrier in the EU is against Neelie :p But in my last post I was referring to this:

Decision taken by MEPs, and roaming fees will be abolished by 2016 (December 15th 2015)

Also they will protect what is referred to a net neutrality, there can be no systems of charging some people extra for preferential access to the internet, or blocking data access to competing products such as VoIP

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26866966

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/meps-vote-s...y-2015-1443237

I'm going a bit off-topic, but I stayed in a hotel last week where the hotel's internet provider had blocked SIP and all non-standard ports. When I told the hotel, they quickly got me another login where all ports were open. I wonder whether the regulations will apply to hotels as well?

I found the draft legislation, Article 37 of this draft regulation (see pages 61 to 66), which comprises many amendments to the well known Regulation (EU) No 531/2012. The most notable points I've spotted are:

• Home networks will have to apply to all their respective retail packages the applicable domestic service rate to both domestic services and regulated roaming services throughout the EEA as if the regulated roaming services were consumed on the home network and ensure that this is complied with when roaming on at least one network in each EEA country. For example O2 UK will apply this in Spain only when roaming on Movistar, because it is also owned by Telefonica. The principle of "virtual extension of the home network coverage" is mentioned.
• Networks can apply fair usage policies to roaming at domestic prices. Three UK already does this for example.
• Home networks don't have to agree bilateral agreements for roaming at domestic prices in all EEA countries, but in only 17 member states representing 70% of the population of the EEA. This is probably means that roaming charges in some small parts of the EU like Gibraltar will not improve.
• Incoming calls will be free from 1st July 2014.

I might have missed some significant points, so I hope others will add more observations below.

So do bills passed by the EU Parliament generally get approved by the member nations?

Is the near-unanimous vote an indication of the support this measure has in the EU countries or are the MEPs way out there?

It would seem the big mobile carriers would try to resist. IIRC the roaming fees they collect are not an insignificant portion or their revenues or profits.


I paid 28 Euros for Orange's Lets Go SIM and a 2 GB top up in France. I paid similar amounts for TIM but got 5 or 10 GB allotment over a month.

The other carriers in Italy have equally or more competitive pricing on their mobile data bundles. So why wouldn't they start selling their SIMs outside of Italy? Or market their lower prices to spur more sales?

It's hard to believe carriers in markets with less competitive pricing would accept this change without fighting against it.

Yeah I've run into that too.

But a more common problem, besides the cumbersome login procedures, is that the speeds are horrible, sometimes under 1 Mbps down, maybe .15 Mbps up.

If you can use the lower-priced mobile data bundles across the EU, more people may just not bother with Hotel Wifi.

I was chatting to a friendly UK dealer last week - he says that, when imposed free roaming comes in, the European networks will copy the US (AT&T/T-Mobile?) flat-rate global roaming deal and offer EDGE (GPRS) free - then ask for a per-gigabyte payment for 3G and 4G services...

Seems a bit sharp practice, but atypical of the cellcos IMHO.

I don't think that would comply with the legislation, which obliges the networks to charge the same for intra-EEA roaming as they charge for domestic usage. For example, if they charge €10 for 1GB of 4G data domestically, then they must charge the same when roaming on 4G within the EEA.

TMoibile doesn't offer edge. It throttles 3G at 128k up and down. People can still run google Maps, stream music or do VOIP over 3G. Not everything at once, but it works.

Ah yes, I remember now. Doing that on a pan-European basis would make sense, with customers expected to pay extra for unthrottled access.

In fact, I wouldn't put it past the cellcos to introduce some form of throttling on their in-country services and then surcharge for full whack 3G and 4G access...

+Steve :)

EU is still trying to set a date but it appears lobbying by national carriers has led to some potential compromises:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0HL2AO20140926

"... doing so prematurely ..." they whinge :roll::lol:

The single European market was supposed to have been enacted many years ago, observed by most other commerce, and mobile operators have been dragged kicking and screaming towards it for long enough time for them to have had plenty of fair warning

Why are they prevaricating now about "setting a date"?

One date has already been set. Free incoming calls etc by less than a year from now. Stop pissing about trying to invent more bureaucracy and excuses and just get on with it.

Well the telecoms are apparently striking back.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31748592

Yes it seems that the telcos (or cellcos) have won this round..... They had too many poins on their side: markets in Europe are still organized nationally, licenses are auctioned country by country a.s.o. One has to admit that Europe is only good to tear down borders if it's good for business. But it's another story, when you can actually make big money by borders like here. Then the spirit of Europe is just an idea (or illusion).

So I think we will see a further gradual lowering of the rate caps for roaming like they did in the past. But no ban on roaming charges altogether. Some providers may scrap incoming roaming (which is really minimal nowadays) voluntarily. But the rest is still big, big money.

The best example are data: EU cap stands at 20c/MB plus tax. And most of the offers are just below the cap. So they sell you 1 MB for about 23c or 1 GB for 230€. Average price in package for domestic use in Europe ranges 5-20€ per GB (mostly around 10€). So the roaming cap is the 23-fold of the average domestic price for data.

In Germany some providers actually use this as a marketing scoop: They "promise" to sell you data for the same rate domestically and within the EU. They do this with a trick: The standard or default domestic rate is put so high (at around 23c/MB) that it matches the EU cap rate. No word of packages, of course. I think that was their strategy to undermine a roaming surcharges ban, if it had been ordered by law.

We still have a long way to go on this continent. But there must remain something, you do better somewhere else LOL

This wouldn't comply with the proposed rules. The pricing has to be identical, meaning that if it's €10 for 1GB domestically, then it also has to be €10 for 1GB elsewhere in the EEA.

Are those for prepaid or postpaid?

A lot of prepaid bundles really don't allow for overages do they? You get a certain amount for a certain period and you're either throttled when you hit the cap or you have to wait and but another bundle?

Both. The proposed legislation makes no distinction between the timing of payment for the service.

Hmm so if I buy a 1 GB prepaid bundle for £10 in the UK and I go across the Chunnel with it, what exactly would happen? I have no credit left on the SIM so it wouldn't roam in France or Netherlands?

Or if I had credit, it would roam and draw down that credit? Would I have to change the APN?

The way in which the service is charged and the availability of the service would be the same, regardless of whether or not you had crossed the English Channel. If you had bought a bundle, then the usage would be taken from the bundle. If you hadn't bought a bundle, then it would use up credit. Your location within the EEA would not change this.

Well. We are talking about a proposal of the European Parliament which is not going to be reality, at least in the near future, i'm afraid.

The proposals of the Commission clearly favours the cellcos and is a slap in the face of the Parliament (and may be the consumer).

If it is really taking place one time, I think two things are going to happen:
- roaming will be severely restricted to own networks or partner networks only
- prices for data will go up in cheap countries like the Baltics or SE Europe and prices will fall in expensive countries.
Because a selective pricing for a specific EU state will not be feasible anymore. Users will take a real "unlimited" 4G data SIM card from e.g. Play in Poland and use it on its roaming partners somewhere else.
As a matter of fact, this is one of the few points of the telcos, I can comprehend.

Do politicians take a lot of money from business interests?

I didn't think they used a lot of expensive TV advertising for campaigns, so politicians wouldn't have to raise as much money as their US counterparts.

From the BBC article:
That doesn't temper it much, does it?

If someone asks on a UK forum which is the best SIM to use for calling 200 minutes and using a modest amount of data per month from 5 different EU countries, they might be a bit taken aback if one recommendation is Aldi from Germany.

They've been promised free incoming calls by the end of the year, and using their bundle from home abroad at no extra cost in the fairly near future.

Well, they thought they were. Reversing away from this position might take some explaining.

There's an election here soon. If the local MP knocks on the door again maybe that's another question to ask him.

"Do politicians take a lot of money from business interests?" I'm astonished to read these lines from America.

"There's an election here soon. If the local MP knocks on the door again maybe that's another question to ask him." Well, I've thought you wanted to leave the party altogether in the UK.

As this is not an option for Germany and roaming will persist for the next years and decades all around us, I decided to take my personal revenge.

Actually, this one guy is right. Some operators have come down with their rates. I decided, that it makes now sense to re-edit my recommendations for EU roaming data SIM cards. Some of them were initiated by members of this forum for which i'm really grateful.

The survey turned out to be a guidebook how to beat the rules of the providers, who doesn't want us to use this or that SIM card. Furthermore, it has been graphically improved now.

I hope you enjoy it. You may clear some typos or give more advice here or in the comments line of the Wiki. I'd appreciate your opinion, but remember, we focus on data on this WIKI which is the biggest ripoff on roaming right now.

LINK: http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.c...European_Union

Most Europeans probably just roam, in limited sessions, rather than hunt down local SIMs?

Guess they haven't complained enough about roaming charges that the EU wants to make a more competitive single market.

Certainly not as loudly as the operators who stood to lose the roaming charges revenues.

The main driver behind the European Commission's move to ban roaming surcharges is that the MEPs themselves suffer these charges themselves, as they work in multiple countries. Therefore they are affected much more than their average constituents.

Yeah but their phone bills are paid for by the govt?

It's still not clear how much power the MEP wields? Do ambitious politicians run for the MEP or for the national parliament?

Does the MEP pass binding laws or is it more advisory? OTOH, they passed this law last year and now the national govts. pretty much vetoed it?

Seems like the national govts. could have given the MEP a clue that these fanciful ideas were never going to be implemented and they wouldn't have wasted the time. Instead, months afterwards, they come back and say, "no, we can't go with this, maybe we'll do it in 2018 (which you really shouldn't pin your hopes on either)."

You might well get that impression, given the mysterious popularity of a certain party whose MEPs only turn up for work half the time, and the cowering of other parties in response, but not everyone wants to leave.

Getting off Politics and going back to original tread i presume the companies who preempted the death of roaming charges within the EU will now have to rethink there strategy, i wonder how long they will last before packages and prices are scraped or increased.

Andrus Ansip, the former PM of Estonia who is now the EU commissioner for crafting a single digital market strategy, supports ending roaming charges as soon as possible.

However, this roaming charges issue seems to be tied to the debate about net neutrality. The European Parliament is for net neutrality while the Germans appears to be for prioritization of "special services."

It doesn't sound like the EU bodies have much clout other than advisory roles on this issue. Sounds like ultimately, the member govts. will make the final decision.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/eus-digi...ity-1427215501

So they announced an agreement today to end roaming charges by June 2017. Who knows after all the previous false starts whether this will stick?

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33325031

So the timeline is for member states to ratify these new rules, including the net neutrality (with exceptions) rules, by December of this year: