EU may end all roaming charges

[dg7feq]

Originally Posted by wco81

The EP passed the end of roaming and net neutrality rules today.

So it's suppose to happen after 15 June 2017. From April 2016, the roaming charges for data will be .05€ per MB, not including VAT. So that's like 50€ per gigabyte before tax.

dont forget it is 5ct SURCHARGE to your local tariff. So this can sum up more if you dont have a bundle for data

[wco81]

So I wonder about this fair use restriction, which they have yet to spell out.

Someone living in SE France could cross over into Italy and get a TIM SIM for 30-35 Euro which would give them 10 GB.

There is no prepaid bundle in France that is anywhere near close. Well maybe Free but their network isn't the same.

With a TIM SIM, they could probably roam on the best French networks.

So I don't know how they'd track it, unless it was on a post paid subscription. For all TIM knows, it's a French tourist to Italy who buys the SIM for a vacation, not to use it mostly in France.

And Orange may see more roaming on their networks from Italian SIMs near the border area. But how would they be able to tell if it's a tourist or if it's a French resident who should have bought an Orange SIM?

Unless they're tracking IMEI numbers of each devices, like they notice devices with certain numbers are roaming in France with an Italian SIM month after month, year after year.

[NFH]

Originally Posted by wco81

So I don't know how they'd track it, unless it was on a post paid subscription. For all TIM knows, it's a French tourist to Italy who buys the SIM for a vacation, not to use it mostly in France.

It's nothing to do with that. TIM will be able to impose a fair usage limit on the amount of usage at domestic prices that is consumed outside Italy in a given period. We don't know yet what the averaging period will be or what level of usage will be allowed. But the EU regulations will stipulate this.

[wco81]

Hmm, okay, I had a TIM SIM earlier this month. Had about 3 GB left when I left Italy.

Went to Frankfurt, turned it on when I landed.

50 MB was consumed right on the tarmac of the airport as the plane was taxing to the gate.

Thereafter, no more.

This was a €30 with 10 GB of prepaid data bundle.

If fair use is something ridiculous like that, then I guess people won't bother with these large data bundles.

[John8xhg]

Very nice as well,....very generous, good forums as well.

[peterdoo]

Originally Posted by wolfbln

UPDATE: Good News
For the regulation effective 2016:

1.) A new rate of incoming roaming for calls will be set at the end of 2015: For calls received, the maximum surcharge will be the weighted average of maximum mobile termination rates across the EU.

2.) The existing caps of 2014 will stay in place for the new rules in 2016: Also after 30 April 2016, the sum of the domestic price and any surcharge cannot in any case be higher than the current retail caps (€0.19 per minute for calls, €0.06 for texts and €0.20 per megabyte of data).

If I see correctly, the price for the incoming calls in roaming inside EU/EEA from April 30th 2016 on has been set at €0.01 per minute plus VAT:

https://twitter.com/eu_commission/st...36305782833152

The other surcharges are as expected.

[wco81]

Well .05€ per megabyte is much better than .20€ per MB.

But we're still talking €50 for a gigabyte.

So still use Wifi or buy prepaid if you're planning to use a lot of data on your devices.


We're 18 months from abolishment of all roaming fees within the EU. Though who knows if the UK votes for a Brexit.

But as we get within 6-9 months of the date, lets see if there are any more changes. Or how restrictive the fair use rules will be.

[wco81]

OK, another update. It's still on schedule for 15 June 2017. Remember that it was originally to be in 2016 if not earlier.

They just released an update, where they're wrangling with "Fair Use Policy" or FUP so that operators can find redress if the free-roaming or "Roam Like at Home" (RLAH - you got to love these bureaucratic acronyms) is abused.

The thing driving this is the wide range of prices in the EU:

For example, consumers in Latvia spend on average €3.70 a month and Irish consumers an average of €23.80 per month for using their mobile phones.

Europeans have different travel habits across the EU, and there are also different network costs in visited countries. A recent European Commission study also shows that consumer retail offers vary between Member States. For example, the cheapest monthly deals offering 1GB of data, 600 minutes of calls and 225 SMS range from €57 in Hungary to €8 in Estonia.

https://www.neweurope.eu/press-relea...he-eu-in-2017/

So for FUP to protect operators, there was first an effort to reduce wholesale roaming caps between carriers. That is apparently not yet finalized.

Then there have been various proposals, like limiting the free roaming time or data amount. Some operators claimed most Europeans only roamed 6-12 days, while others claimed it was much more. I've seen figures proposed like 90 total days of free roaming per year and no more than 30 consecutive days of roaming, to make sure people aren't using cheaper SIM cards from one country in another on a permanent basis.

Or another proposal would be to allow carriers to impose surcharges for those customers who roamed too much.

All kinds of documentation here. There's some interesting data, like the AARPU (average mobile revenues per user) in each country:

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-...ing-regulation

Note the date, they only published this stuff on 12/15/2016, just 6 months before the target date for free roaming. But they're still defining, deliberating and sending out proposals to each countries and presumably operators.

Will they get all these rules hammered away in time or will there be another delay?

[peterdoo]

The rules are there now. The regulation is there since long time already and the implementing act that defines the fair use policy (FUP) has been approved last week as published in your link. The only thing that is missing are the wholesale prices which will be used to calculate the maximum amount of data that one will be able to use without surcharge in EU-roaming.

The whole thing got quite complicated. In short, the voice/SMS EU-roaming should be possible without surcharge without any additional FUP. For data on postpaid one will be able to roam during about 60 days within any 4 months period without surcharge up to the maximum of:
2 x monthly amount excl. VAT / wholesale price per MB.

For prepaid it seems that the operators will be able to limit the amounts of surcharge-free roaming to very low amounts, if they wish to.

If an operator wishes so and can show that this is necessary, he may request to be able to continue to charge roaming surcharges from the day one of the free EU-roaming on.

[wco81]

Well in that case, guess no point in roaming with prepaid, might as well just get a local SIM if one plans to use a lot of data.

The other term they're using is "stable links" as in the user has to show an address or "stable links" to an EU address in order to receive free roaming benefits. Maybe that will rule out people visiting from outside the EU.

But it also seems like during the years they've taken to arrive at this point, roaming costs have dropped enough that a lot of people are okay with roaming for short periods of time.

Or prepaid data has also dropping in price. Or there are products offering free roaming within the EU already.

So to a certain extent, the market has solved the problem during the sweet time it's taken the EU bureaucrats to lift roaming costs.