The European Commission has adopted a proposal to cut wholesale roaming charges as part of the process to abolish all retail roaming in the EU by mid-June 2017. Following the public consultation on wholesale roaming rates, the EC has proposed cutting maximum wholesale roaming charges to 4 eurocents a minute for calls, 1 eurocent per SMS and 0.85 eurocents per megabyte of data. Wholesale prices currently stand at 5 eurocents a minute for calls, 2 eurocents for SMS and 5 eurocents per megabyte of data. In a statement, the EC said national wholesale roaming markets need to be competitive to enable operators to abolish retail roaming charges without operating at a loss.
"In a year from now, we'll say goodbye to roaming charges," said EC Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip, adding that the EC aimed to abolish unjustified geo-blocking on the same occasion and introduce cross-border portability of content. "This will clearly be a triple win for European consumers," he said.
In its statement, the EC emphasised that after the planned abolition of roaming charges on 15 June 2017, operators will be able to apply a fair use policy "to prevent abusive or anomalous usage of roaming services by customers". The Roaming Regulation also includes a sustainability derogation clause, meaning operators can be exempted from the requirement to abolish roaming charges if they can prove they won’t be able to recover costs.
The EC added that it expected to lay down detailed rules on the application of fair use policies and on the sustainability derogation by December. It also published a study by Tetra Consultants on the costs of providing wholesale roaming services in the EU. This helped form the basis of the decision on the new rates.
