The abolition of mobile roaming charges across the European Union by the middle of this year looks almost certain now, after the region’s executive body, parliament and representatives of the 28 Member States agreed a deal on wholesale charges.
The date for the start of what the EC is dubbing ‘roam-like-at-home’ is June 15. Although the European Parliament and the Council still need to formally approve today’s agreement via a vote. But that should be a formality given the accord now reached between the various players.
In statement commenting on today’s announcement , the European Commission’s VP for the Digital Single Market, Andrus Ansip, described the agreement as the “last piece of the puzzle”. “This was the last piece of the puzzle. As of 15 June, Europeans will be able to travel in the EU without roaming charges,” he said.
Agreements over wholesale charges (aka the prices mobile operators can charge each other for allowing other networks’ users to roam across their networks) had caused sticking points for the policy before. So it’s unsurprising that the agreement includes a gradually reducing wholesale cap for data — eventually shrinking to €2.5 per GB by 2022.
Regardless, this does not affect EU consumers’ roaming fees for data, which will still end come mid June.
The EU has been trying to end roaming charges for what feels like forever several years — setting out its intention to end the fees in a 2013 reform plan (called the Telecoms Single Market initiative), with the aim of boosting the region’s global competitiveness and fostering digital jobs by reducing market fragmentation.
