Come June 15, 2017 roaming mobile users across Europe will see communication costs drop to prices similar to home country rates following the approval of the European Parliament of a corresponding ban.
The add-on fees by mobile providers to offshore calls, texts, and data use have always been a bone of contention for consumers. With this ban will go the surprise fees and massive costs that plague roaming users, particularly in use of data services.
Although prices have seen reduction in recent times, an interim cap will be implemented to control surcharges that telecoms apply. This is effectively 75% less than current rates for mobile use in Europe.
Caps to calls will be 0.05 euro (3p) to SMS will be 0.02 euro (1p) per message and to data will be 0.05 euro per megabyte. This interim measure will take effect from April 2016 to June 2017.
Ban supporter and Liberal Democrat MEP Catherine Bearder sees this as Britain taking the lead. She also declares that assisting in costs regulation and making travel easier is part of what being in the EU means.
"The end of rip-off roaming fees is a massive win for British consumers," she remarks.
Although many share in such celebration, a number claim that this is not good news at all. Mobile providers may retaliate by increasing domestic tariff rates so that consumers will still effectively pay the price. Given this, they claim that the ban is essentially unfair to consumers who do not travel and those who do not travel so frequently.
Gartner Lead Analyst Lisa Unden-Farboud explains this further: "The reduction of roaming zones will have an impact on communications service providers' revenues. As a consequence, providers will seek ways to make additional revenue streams in the form of either trimming the value of packages in home markets, or adding new services and applications by which the providers hope to entice their users deeper into longer contracts or make contract exits more challenging."
