European Union bans roaming charges after June 2017
01 Jul 2015
Telecommunications companies in the EU will be banned from charging higher rates for roaming services starting June 2017 under a compromise reached on 30 June over a revamp of the industry rules.
When travelling in the EU, mobile-phone users would incur the same charges as at home, as per the agreement reached on the proposed legislation by negotiators from the European Parliament, the EU governments and the European Commission.
The agreement calls for formal approval by the parliament and the bloc's 28 governments. "National borders will no longer be decisive in causing charges," Guenther Oettinger, the EU's commissioner for the Digital Economy, told reporters in Brussels.
He called the accord a "crucial agreement."
Telecom companies had argued against eliminating roaming charges saying this would deprive them of profitable businesses in a market already crowded with over 100 carriers, intense price wars and weak economies in several European countries.
An EU move on roaming fees is expected to reduce the cash flow of mobile operators by as much as €7 billion by 2020, Etno, a European telecommunications industry body said in 2013.
Following negotiations at the European Parliament and European Council, agreement had also been reached on net neutrality rules, which would see internet providers banned from slowing down or blocking access to certain content, services or applications.
According to commission vice-president for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, the announcement was something EU consumers had been demanding for a long time.
He said, Europeans had been calling and waiting for the end of roaming charges as well as for net neutrality rules. He said they had been heard though there was lot of work ahead to create a single digital market.
Ansip said the commission's plans to make it happen were fully endorsed by heads of state and government last week, and the movement would be faster than ever on this.
However, according to director general of the European Consumer Organisation, Monique Goyens, there was ''devil in the detail'' of the deal.
She said it could not be called the end of roaming when there were in-built exceptions to allow providers to charge consumers when they went abroad or if they feared it was too costly. She said it was critical that the EU and national governments observe the deadline and finally ban roaming.
