Technology 3 min read

European Cell Carriers Eliminate Roaming Charges

Pathdoc | Shutterstock.com

Pathdoc | Shutterstock.com

It’s official: roaming charges within the European Union have officially been dropped altogether by the European Commission starting today, June 15.

Roaming charges are added when a user utilizes their device (cell phone, smartphone, tablet, etc.) outside of their home and local network.

For a nominal fee, with roaming service, customers can make and receive voice calls, send and receive data (SMS, MMS, emails, 3G/4G data) or access the Internet, while traveling in foreign countries by using another network not typically affiliated with their own.

Europe bans roaming charges altogether in the European Union.Click To Tweet

In Europe, Roam Like at Home

In the European Union, it took ten years to first regulate the roaming market and then reduce the costs before terminating them once and for all. In 2007; the European Commission issued the first Roaming Regulations, which was revised in 2012 to introduce cheaper fees.

Yesterday, the European Commission has released a joint statement that ends roaming fees altogether. From 15 June 2017 onwards, citizens making calls, sending SMS/MMS and accessing the mobile Internet, from a country to another country in the EU, will therefore benefit from rates identical to those charged by his home operator (everyone pays domestic rates).

After the European Parliament adopted the Regulation No. 2015/2120 on 27 October 2015, European operators had two years to prepare for the new regulation, hailed by the European Commission as a “European success story.”

What Does This Mean for European (and U.S.) Telecom Operators?

If the new regulation promotes a fair and sustainable use policy for consumers who will benefit from the same services without additional costs, the same cannot be said about operators.

Big Telecom operators did everything at the time to prevent these regulations from going into effect and engaged in unsuccessful lobbying attempts.

According to a report by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic, BEREC, the European wholesale roaming market generates 4.7 billion Euros a year.

Needless to say, roaming fees are a real bonus, especially for tourist countries like Spain, Italy, and France. Besides, roaming service will always have a cost for the operator, who will have to carry the communication on a network other than their own.

Europe’s new regulations will have a disruptive effect across other regions in the world that will be obliged to take similar approaches.

For example, some EU operators (like Vodafone) are already offering roaming service without extra fees for customers when in the USA. How long until U.S. operators, such as AT&T and Verizon, offer their customers traveling to Europe the same treatment?

First AI Web Content Optimization Platform Just for Writers

Found this article interesting?

Let Zayan Guedim know how much you appreciate this article by clicking the heart icon and by sharing this article on social media.


Profile Image

Zayan Guedim

Trilingual poet, investigative journalist, and novelist. Zed loves tackling the big existential questions and all-things quantum.

Comments (2)
Most Recent most recent
You
  1. Profile Image
    Joe Sawyer October 15 at 8:12 pm GMT

    LOST CRYPTO/ETH/FUNDS RECOVERY EXPERTS:LOST RECOVERY MASTER

    Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency scams are becoming rampant as the day goes by. One should be careful when dealing with people online especially when it has to do with your funds. Getting back your stolen bitcoins is very easy but there are also lots of fraudulent recovery firms out there so you need to be careful not to end up being defrauded again. Lost Recovery Masters are the most trusted and reliable recovery Hackers. They are the best recovery team out there now. They are very fast and efficient in the recovery of your funds. To contact them on email (Support@lostrecoverymasters.com  )/whatsapp +1(204)819-5505 or Learn more Website https://lostrecoverymasters.com/   You can simply send an email or whatapp and you will be helped to recover 100% of your lost funds- I was able to recover all of my stolen bitcoins. They provide excellent service.

  2. Profile Image
    family pride November 30 at 10:44 pm GMT

    Last year December I was contacted by a broker who convinced me to invest into Cryptoallday. I made an initial investment of € 200,000 and they asked for € 19,500 more in order to access my withdrawal. I followed their instructions and made another deposit. For 2 months now I have been trying to contact Cryptoallday but I got no response. I talked to my friends and colleagues about it and luckily for me a friend of mine just got out of a situation like that and introduced to a wealth recovery team that helped her during her investment problem, within 3 days of contacting them they were able to help me get 100% of my lost money back. They only got paid after the recovery and I had no problem with giving them 10% from the recovered funds after I got it back. You can reach out to them for more insight. ( CRYPTORECOVERYHACKER @ GMAIL COM )

share Scroll to top

Link Copied Successfully

Sign in

Sign in to access your personalized homepage, follow authors and topics you love, and clap for stories that matter to you.

Sign in with Google Sign in with Facebook

By using our site you agree to our privacy policy.