EU to end roaming charges by June 15, 2017
 

On April 30, 2016 will drop to almost zero
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Europe to Scrap Roaming Charges

Published on: 30th Jun 2015

The European Parliament has provisionally agreed to proposals that will see cross border roaming fees with in the EU scrapped by the middle of 2017.

Related negotiations will also safeguard open internet access, also known as net neutrality rules.

Under the agreement, roaming surcharges in the European Union will be abolished as of 15 June 2017. However, roaming providers will be able to apply a 'fair use policy' to prevent abusive use of roaming. This would include using roaming services for purposes other than periodic travel.

Safeguards will be introduced to address the recovery of costs by operators.

Roaming fees will already go down on 30 April 2016, when the current retail caps will be replaced by a maximum surcharge of EUR0.05 per minute for calls, EUR0.02 for SMSs and EUR0.05 per megabyte for data.

Protecting open internet

Under the first EU-wide open internet rules, operators will have to treat all traffic equally when providing internet access services. They may use reasonable traffic management measures. Blocking or throttling will be allowed only in a limited number of circumstances, for instance to counter a cyber-attacks and prevent traffic congestion. Agreements on services requiring a specific level of quality will be allowed, but operators will have to ensure the general quality of internet access services.