Surprise as EU Withdraw Fair Use Plan for FREE Mobile Roaming

The European Union’s plan to end mobile roaming charges from 15th June 2017 (i.e. any call, text or data allowances will come from your domestic plan), which will also apply to the UK until we leave in a few years’ time, has been thrown into confusion after a key part of the policy was withdrawn.

The cost of EU roaming has already come down hugely in recent years’ and in April 2016 it fell again, with the maximum surcharge (this is added to your domestic rate) that mobile network operators (e.g. Three UK, Vodafone, O2 and EE) can levy dropping to €0.05 +vat (£0.04) per minute for outgoing calls, €0.01 (£0.01) per minute for incoming calls, €0.02 (£0.02) per text and €0.05 (£0.04) per MegaByte of Mobile Broadband data.

Initially the European Commission’s plan was that these surcharges would be completely abolished from 15th June 2017, save for a Fair Use Policy exception to prevent abuse. Under the Fair Use rule, roaming charges would only be completely abolished for “at least 90 days per year” (operators could be more flexible if they wanted) or no more than 30 days of roaming use in a row.

EC Statement from 7th September 2016

Those of us who travel do so on average for 12 days per year. But the Commission goes much further by abolishing roaming charges for at least 90 days per year, much more than the average time that a European is roaming with their phone. So in practice these charges will disappear for the vast majority of us. 99% of European travellers are covered.

Why did the Commission put forward the 90 days minimum? Very simple: We have to strike the right balance. We want to abolish roaming charges for people who travel. Without a few safeguards to avoid abuses – safeguards that the European Parliament and Council have asked the Commission to specify – network quality and investments in new capacity in some countries may suffer as people could opt for different territorial operators, and the domestic mobile prices might go up as operators would try to compensate losses.

Those who travel to and from work, crossing borders every day, are not concerned by the minimum of 90 days.

A few reports expressed surprise at the new restriction, even though it won’t affect the vast majority of travellers and isn’t as harsh as some had feared when talk of a Fair Use exception first emerged (i.e. earlier on there was talk of a strict free roaming allowance being applied to calls, texts and data allowances).

However the new Fair Use Policy appears to have died before it could even be implemented. On Friday 9th September the Commission’s President, Jean-Claude Juncker, was suddenly seen throwing a spanner into the works when he confirmed that the rules were being withdrawn for unspecified changes.

EC Statement from 9th September 2016

A few days ago, the Commission’s services started a consultation on the draft measures related to the end of roaming charges foreseen in June 2017. In light of the initial feed-back received, President Juncker has instructed the services to withdraw that text and to work on a new proposal.

For more than a decade, the Commission has been working hard to reduce roaming charges imposed on European travellers. Indeed, since 2007 roaming prices have decreased by more than 90% for calls, text messages and data.

When the European Parliament and the Council agreed to the Commission’s proposal to abolish roaming charges, they asked the Commission to define measures to prevent roaming services from being used for other reasons than periodic travelling (so-called “fair use policy”). A new proposal will be presented soon.

At this stage it’s unclear if the “new proposal” will be an improvement or something far worse. It’s not as if the existing approach hasn’t already taken the best part of two years to reach this point and the last minute political meddling is merely another headache for all those involved.