The European parliament is expected to vote tomorrow (March 18) to abolish roaming charges for using a mobile phone abroad but operators have warned that domestic bills could rise as a result.
If, as is likely, the European parliament’s industry committee approves the proposal, operators will no longer be able to charge travellers to the EU’s member states extra for calls, texts and internet use from December 2015.
These charges are already set to fall from €400 per gigabit to roam on the internet to €200 in July as a result of other EU legislation, but banning roaming charges altogether will make a huge difference to consumers.
From July, the wholesale cost of roaming will be capped at 5 cents per megabit of date, or per voice call made, and at 2 cent per text. Although this sounds low, it is more than customers in the UK pay currently, as the £10 per gigabit we pay in the UK is around four times lower than the European wholesale cap of €50.
However, a coalition of networks, including Three, Virgin Media and France’s Free, representing 45 million consumers across Europe, has warned that the legislation is so badly designed that the cost of domestic calls could rise to pay for it and that non-roaming customers may find themselves subsidising roaming customers.
A spokesman for Three explained that without effective wholesale regulation, customers from northern Europe could go to southern Europe and incur very large wholesale charges but the amount operators can recoup will be cut, so at some point they will have to increase their prices domestically to make up for the loss. This is likely to hit Britons and other northern Europeans hardest, as they tend to go south on holiday.
In addition, the removal of one of the most profitable sources of revenue for operators could force them to slash their investment, thereby hampering the roll out of 4G services.