EU may end all roaming charges

peterdoo · 02-07-2015, 12:42

Why shouldn't they be obliged to apply the current domestic price of the subscriber plus a surcharge while roaming? For a subscriber the domestic price is the one that the customer booked. Either per MB or a package.

A surcharge alone would be enough to cover the cost. Over 60 EUR per GB only for the surcharge is more than what you pay in any EU country buying a local SIM. The operators in Slovenia today in many domestic packages include 1 GB data plus unlimited calls in EEA-Roaming for 10 EUR per month (only those months when roaming is used). They certainly do not make losses with these offers, so the price level between the operators must already be very low.

I see the change to surcharge as a measure that will benefit operators with high domestic prices and will penalize those with low domestic prices. An operator from a country with high price level will charge a high price to its customer and pay low price to an operator in a low price level country. Higher profit than until now. An operator from a country with low price level will charge a low price to its customer and pay high price to an operator in a high price level country. Less income than until now. This encourages the operators to maintain or migrate towards high prices.

Probably the existing better roaming offers will not be canceled because of that. Although we are only talking about a regulation valid for about one year (from 2016 to 2017), I see this new regulation more like a preparation for what we can expect after 2017. Probably some time intervals will be specified (e.g. max. 20 days per year) during which the surcharges will be dropped completelly, using the domestic rate booked at that moment also while roaming. For the rest of the time, the surcharges will continue to be charged.

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peterdoo (Offline) Senior Member Prepaid Fan Posts: 137 Join Date: 20 Sep 2013 Country:	02-07-2015, 12:42 Why shouldn't they be obliged to apply the current domestic price of the subscriber plus a surcharge while roaming? For a subscriber the domestic price is the one that the customer booked. Either per MB or a package. A surcharge alone would be enough to cover the cost. Over 60 EUR per GB only for the surcharge is more than what you pay in any EU country buying a local SIM. The operators in Slovenia today in many domestic packages include 1 GB data plus unlimited calls in EEA-Roaming for 10 EUR per month (only those months when roaming is used). They certainly do not make losses with these offers, so the price level between the operators must already be very low. I see the change to surcharge as a measure that will benefit operators with high domestic prices and will penalize those with low domestic prices. An operator from a country with high price level will charge a high price to its customer and pay low price to an operator in a low price level country. Higher profit than until now. An operator from a country with low price level will charge a low price to its customer and pay high price to an operator in a high price level country. Less income than until now. This encourages the operators to maintain or migrate towards high prices. Probably the existing better roaming offers will not be canceled because of that. Although we are only talking about a regulation valid for about one year (from 2016 to 2017), I see this new regulation more like a preparation for what we can expect after 2017. Probably some time intervals will be specified (e.g. max. 20 days per year) during which the surcharges will be dropped completelly, using the domestic rate booked at that moment also while roaming. For the rest of the time, the surcharges will continue to be charged.