Great news for anyone who has been stung by high charges when trying to use their mobile phone or tablet abroad: members of the European Parliament and representatives of the Council and the European Commission have reached a preliminary deal on new EU roaming rules, following the European Commission’s proposal last year.
These rules are expected to lead to a structural and durable solution to the high cost of using mobile phones and other smart devices while travelling in the EU, and will bring to an end a long-drawn out state of affairs in which Malta was once singled out as having some of the EU’s highest mobile roaming charges.
The European Parliament is expected to approve this agreement in May and the Council in June, paving the way for the new rules to come into force on 1 July.
The rules will create more competition in the roaming market. In the meantime, they impose new safeguard limits on consumer prices, including a new price cap for data roaming, which will progressively bring prices down from their current high levels until the benefits of competition have fully kicked in.
European Commission vice-president for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said this week: “Consumers are fed up with being ripped off by high roaming charges. The new roaming deal gives us a long-term structural solution, with lower prices, more choice and a new smart approach for data and internet browsing. The benefits will be felt in time for the summer break – and by summer 2014, people will be able to shop around for the best deal.”
Competition will deliver
cheaper roaming
As from 1 July 2014, customers will have the option to shop around for the best deal and sign up for a separate mobile contract for roaming, which may be different from their domestic mobile provider, while keeping the same phone number.
Each time the customer crosses a border, his or her phone will switch to the network of the roaming provider they have chosen, without any further action on their part. Customers will also have the option of directly selecting a local mobile network for data roaming in the country they are visiting.
As from 1 July, virtual mobile operators and resellers who do not have their own networks will immediately have the right to access other operators’ networks at regulated wholesale prices in order to provide roaming services (together with national services) to their customers. This will already create more competition between operators and so increase the incentives for them to offer customers more attractive roaming prices and services.
This is the first time the EU has tackled the high cost of roaming at its root, by introducing pro-competitive structural change into the heart of the market.
Data roaming: choose your network before or while you roam
Competitive data roaming offers will also be opened up by the new EU roaming rules with the introduction of new ways of using your smartphone, netbook or tablet while travelling abroad.
From July 2014, mobile operators in visited countries will be able to directly offer data roaming services on their own networks to travellers, which consumers can select either in advance or on the spot. Mobile network operators in visited countries will have an incentive to offer such services at rates close to national prices, on the basis of their own low national network costs. As people’s mobile data use intensifies, and they want to use their devices anywhere, any time, many travellers are likely to find this WiFi-like option very attractive.
Until then… cheaper roaming through price caps
Until competition has driven retail prices down, the EU’s roaming rules will progressively lower current retail price caps on voice and texting services and introduce a new retail price cap for mobile data services. These caps will operate as a safeguard for consumers until 30 June 2017.
Under the new rules, which will enter into force on 1 July, consumers will pay no more than:
29 cents per minute to make a call,
8 cents per minute to receive a call,
9 cents to send a text message
70 cents per megabyte (MB) to download data or browse the internet while travelling abroad (charged per kilobyte used).
These regulated price caps will progressively go down so that by 1 July 2014, roaming consumers will be paying no more than 19 cents per minute to make a call, a maximum of 5 cents per minute to receive a call, a maximum of six cents to send a text message and a maximum of 20 cents per megabyte to download data or browse the internet while travelling abroad.
These new price levels have been based on new data about the industry cost of providing roaming services, provided by BEREC, the body of European telecoms regulators, in February of this year. The wholesale caps are based on an estimate of the basic cost of provision, while the safeguard retail caps are set at a level which should make investment in alternative roaming services and entry of new players attractive – which is key to developing effective, durable competition on this market in the interests of consumers.
Bill shock: better information when travelling outside the EU
Under the new rules, consumers will also receive information about roaming charges when they travel to countries outside the EU, which will help them to more easily avoid “bill shocks” when using their smart device abroad. The new rules will provide for the extension of the alert system currently in place within the EU.
As from 1 July, people travelling outside the EU will get a warning text message, email or pop-up window when they are nearing €50 of data downloads, or their pre-agreed level. Consumers will have to confirm they are happy to go over this level in order to continue their data roaming.
The proposed retail caps serve as a mere safety-net for consumers, while the Commission said it expects that the proposed competition-enhancing structural measures will deliver innovative pan-European offers and cheaper prices, significantly below the safeguard caps.