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EU mobile roaming charges will end in June 2017

by Mark Tyson on 30 June 2015, 12:06

Tags: European Commission

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The European Commission (EC) has announced that mobile roaming charges will cease to be permissible in June 2017. The announcement comes two years after the EC put forward its proposal for a single telecoms market. In trilogue discussions earlier today the European Commission, Council and Parliament agreed upon the measures to be implemented. Additionally the three parties agreed to implement strong 'net neutrality' rules across Europe.

Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Günther H. Oettinger, said: "I welcome today's crucial agreement to finally end roaming charges and establish pragmatic net neutrality rules throughout the EU. Both are essential for consumers and businesses in today's European digital economy and society." The EU has been working to decrease roaming charges within the Europe for a decade and says that prices for roaming calls, SMS and data have fallen by 80 per cent since 2007 thanks to its efforts.

Starting next year there will be an overhaul of EU telecoms rules including EU-level spectrum coordination. This will help create the foundations for the European digital economy and society, to create a Digital Single Market.

The next change to European mobile user prices will impact in April 2016 when operators will be restricted to adding up to a maximum of €0.05 per minute of call made, €0.02 per SMS sent, and €0.05 per MB of data (excl. VAT) to domestic rates. 14 months later roaming charges will be abolished.

EU Net Neutrality

Today the principle of net neutrality has been enshrined in EU law. This means that users will be able to access the content of their choice without traffic tampering by service providers. No content will be unfairly blocked or slowed down says the EC press release.

While the EU will have an open internet where "all traffic will be treated equally," there will be 'public interest exceptions' in cases involving network security or child pornography. The EU won't stop ISPs trying to offer USPs such as specialised services of higher quality, like Internet TV and new innovative applications, "so long as these services are not supplied at the expense of the quality of the open Internet". A European conservatives group has pointed out possible implications for spam filtering and parental controls. The British government will likely pass its own law to maintain parental controls.

EU net neutrality will provide us "the strongest and most comprehensive open Internet rules in the world." It will come into effect from 30th April 2016.



HEXUS Forums :: 20 Comments

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About time. What's worse which happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Stand at Dover and the signal in France is stronger which was 22 miles away.
Oh great, I have to pay more for my contract so that businessmen don't have to worry about paying extra whilst travelling. Why should I pay for this when I am not travelling to EU?

EU has their priorities right, as usual. Not like there is a major migrant crisis in South Europe or anything.
I like the idea of eu net neutrality but I can't see it doing much if I'm honest…. it will still end up being a case of you pay us enough and it will be ‘overlooked’

and lol at this bit… ‘No content will be unfairly blocked’ yet they allow courts to block a torrent search engine like the pirate bay and other, they don't actually host any files, they're no different to Google/bing in essence which also hosts the same links in some cases. Not that I condone illegal downloads of course but torrents don't just cover illegal downloads.


As to priorities, I'm pretty sure this is likely going through a different ‘department’ to the migrant crisis in southern Europe and even Calais, oh wait the French and UK governments are dealing with that so we're doomed lol.
LSG501
….

and lol at this bit… ‘No content will be unfairly blocked’ yet they allow courts to block a torrent search engine like the pirate bay and other, they don't actually host any files, they're no different to Google/bing in essence which also hosts the same links in some cases. Not that I condone illegal downloads of course but torrents don't just cover illegal downloads.

….
No, torrents aren't all illegal content, but the analysis done for the court showed, IIRC, that a percentage in the high 90%s were, for Pirate Bay.

But this thread isn't about torrents, and certainly isn't about Pirate Bay.
What intrigued me in that article was this bit ….

…. The EU has been working to decrease roaming charges within the Europe for a decade and says that prices for roaming calls, SMS and data have fallen by 80 per cent since 2007 thanks to its efforts.
Are they suggesting that market conditions, competitiveness, the advent of smartphones and ever-increasing consumer uptake had nothing to do with it, but it's all the EU?

Of course, personally, I don't give a hoot. I don't use a smartphone, don't use a mobile all that much, and very rarely use roaming outside of the US, and even that, rarely. And of course, EU roaming rules don't affect US use anyway.

To be honest, they could quadrupole call/data charges and I don't care, because I don't make enough calls to care. I put £10 on my PAYG in, IIRC, 2007, and I'll have to top it up shortly. At that rate, running at about £1.50 per year, it's not something that matters to me. I really only have a mobile at all so that the VERY small list of people that have the number can get me if it's urgent, or for the extremely rare call I make.

And no, I'm not a comms dinosaur. Far from it. I had a mobile phone when they were very rare, outside of business use. It's a positive choice to not be contactable by all and sundry, more or less 24/7.