Mobile roaming charges and the costs incurred are constantly reported in the news, with many falling victim to bill shock. For those travelling within the EU this soon will be a thing of the past.
30 June 2015 saw the European Commission, European Parliament and Council reach an agreement to end mobile roaming charges as of 15 June 2017.
Originally EU mobile roaming charges were set to be abolished from December 2015, which was then delayed until 2018 and once again has been amended.
On 30 April 2016 current retail caps will be replaced by a maximum surcharge of €0.05 per minute for calls, €0.02 for SMSs and €0.05 per megabyte for data.1
The first EU-wide internet rules were also announced by the EU Commission, meaning providers will have to treat traffic equally. ‘Agreements on services requiring a specific level of quality will be allowed, but operators will have to ensure the general quality of internet access services.’2
“This is a great success for the European Union and the Latvian presidency”, stressed Anrijs Matīss, the Latvian Minister for Transport. “The Latvian presidency has put a lot of effort into finalising the Telecom Single Market proposal – we revived the proposal from scratch and reached agreement. This would not have been possible without the commitment and constructive approach of the member states, the European Parliament and the European Commission”.3
Mark Pattman, Managing Director, RoamingExpert said “The end of roaming charges in the EU is great news, however fair usage policies will be in put in place which people need to be aware of. Mobile roaming charges outside of the EU will be significantly higher which if sailing from country to country could incur high bills.”
If you regularly sail around the EU or further you may wish to consider a mobile roaming tariff from RoamingExpert. We have built a range of flexible European and Worldwide roaming solutions tailored to the yachting industry.
1,2 & 3 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/06/30-roaming-charges/
