The EU has reached an agreement on extending 'roam like at home' in the region until 2032. Under the political agreement reached by the European Parliament, Council and Commission, wholesale roaming rates also will fall steadily from 2022, taking the price of 1 GB of data down to EUR 1 in 2027.
Since 2017, travellers across the EU countries have been able to use their mobile services at the same price in other countries as their home market. The associated regulation is expected to expire in mid-2022, and the European Commission proposed earlier this year to extend the measures for another ten years.
The new regulation will come with increased guarantees on quality of service, requiring operators to inform customers if they should expect to see slower services abroad than at home. This also includes a right to access 5G networks and be informed of ways to reach emergency services numbers.
Lower wholesale rates from 01 July 2022
The EU institutions also agreed a steeper fall in wholesale rates than the original proposal from the Commissions. MVNOs especially have been pushing for a cut in data roaming prices to make their business more sustainable. The final agreement will see the wholesale data roaming cap drop from EUR 2.5 per GB to EUR 2.0 in 2022, EUR 1.8 in 2023, EUR 1.55 in 2024, EUR 1.3 in 2025, EUR 1.1 in 2026 and EUR 1 per GB from 2027.
Wholesale call rates will fall from EUR 0.032 per minute to EUR 0.022 in 2022 and EUR 0.019 per minute from 2025. The SMS cap will be 0.4 cents a message from 2022 and 0.3 cents from 2025.
Also new in the regulation will be an automatic cap of EUR 50 on any excess charges mobile users may incur while roaming. Operators will be required to inform customers when extra charges may apply, for example when connecting to non-terrestrial networks on boats or planes, and allow customers to opt out of these services or set a different spending cap.
