What are the future European Union roaming fees/pricing charges?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 13 Aug, 2023
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It’s not clear. As far as I know, nothing has been ruled out or abolished, it’s just that announced dates for vote/approval for new measures slip and nothing has happened yet. There were no further mandatory price cuts planned in the current regulation after the ones that took place last year and therefore no strict timeline. But the idea is still in the air.
The last proposal I heard about (early 2015) would introduce a limited yearly amount of free MB/minutes/text while still allowing operators to charge (lower) fees after that, with a tentative implementation date of 2016 (see 1 and 2). And there is still vague talk of “phasing out roaming fees” but that would be postponed until after 2018.
Until now, it’s the Council that was most reluctant so they won’t push for better conditions/speedy implementation but hopefully the other institutions will not block its proposal from becoming the law and that would be the main milestone we can expect. However none of this has been formally approved so that’s purely guesswork on my part.
Additionally, the current regulation has a built-in review and expiration mechanism. So if nothing happens, the current retail price cap would only extend until the end of June 2017 and then expire. Prices would then become unregulated again (the wholesale cap would last a few more years).
I assume that if prices don’t go down by themselves, the EU would at least extend the current price caps into the future, even if the different institutions can’t find an agreement to introduce some form of mandatory free roaming. But, as of June 2015, nothing has been decided and those are the only rules in place.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘