The European Commission has scrapped plans for a 90 day limit on its free
roaming policy, which is due to come into effect in June next year.
The move follows an outcry from businesses and the public at the previously
announced fair usage limit, that was designed to prevent abuses of the system.
Under the new draft policy, agreed by the college of Commissioners today, there
will be no limit on timing or volume imposed on consumers when using their
mobile devices in the EU.
Instead, the Commission has proposed alternative safeguard mechanisms to
prevent exploitation of the free roaming policy, based on the principle of
residence or stable links in the EU country where the mobile provider is based.
"Commission action on roaming prices has delivered for European consumers.
Today's draft rules ensure we can end roaming charges as of June 2017 for all
people who travel periodically in the EU, while ensuring that operators have
the tools to guard against abuse of the rules," said Günther H. Oettinger,
Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society.
Specifically, criterias for mobile operators to assess whether the roaming
policy is being abused include whether the user has insignificant domestic
traffic on their account compared to roaming traffic.
If a SIM card that is most often used for roaming is inactive for long periods,
that will also be grounds for intervention by the mobile operator.
Subscription to and sequential use of multiple SIM cards by the same customer
while roaming will also not be allowed.
If the mobile operator feels a customer is abusing the policy, it must alert
them.
Only then can they apply small surcharges of up to €0.04 per minute per call,
€0.01 per SMS and €0.0085 per megabyte of data.
The operator will also be obliged to have a complaints procedure in place to
deal with disagreements, with appeal to the national regulator possible if an
agreement can not be reached.
The Commission says examples of "stable links" include work commuters, expats
who are frequently present in their home country or Erasmus students.
Operators will also be able to opt out of the "Roam like at Home" system and
apply surcharges if they can prove to the national regulator that the policy
was putting their charging model for customers in their home market at risk.
A period of feedback will now take place, with a final decision on the
proposals set to be made by 15th December.
