Scope

The Commission looked into how the Roaming regulation has performed and how the roaming market functioned

Evaluation findings

The Commission presented in December 2019 to the European Parliament and the Council a report and the accompanying staff working document that examined how the roaming market was functioning. The report drew on a broad range of data to evaluate how the current Roaming Regulation has performed and how the roaming market functioned after the Roam-like-at-Home (‘RLAH’) rules came into force.

The Review report confirmed that, overall, the roaming market functions well under the Roam-like-at-Home rules and that the rules have been a success. The report concluded that, despite signs of some competition dynamics on both the retail and wholesale roaming markets, the underlying basic competition conditions have not changed, and are not likely to change in the near future to such an extent that retail or wholesale regulation of the roaming market could be lifted.

In addition, the report’s findings and other evidence collected as part of the review identified unresolved issues in roaming services, in terms of quality of service, communications to value-added services and access to emergency services.

Which objective(s) does the Commission pursue?

The Commission put forward its proposal with aim to extend the rules regulating the EU-wide roaming market beyond 2022, while amending the maximum wholesale charges, bringing in new measures to ensure a genuine Roam-like-at-Home experience while roaming, and repealing other measures that appear no longer necessary.

The proposal was meant to ensure operators can provide Roaming-like-at-Home service and recover costs in a sustainable manner at wholesale level. The proposal was to set EU-wide wholesale roaming maximum charges for calls made, SMS messages and data at lower levels than those valid until 30 June 2022. To reconcile the above two objectives of ensuring sustainability and cost recovery, the proposal set out a two-step glide path for the maximum wholesale charges applicable for data, voice and SMS.

In line with the policy choice made in Regulation (EU) No 531/2012, the new maximum wholesale charges should act as a safeguard level and should ensure that operators can recover their costs. They should also enable the widespread and sustainable provision of Roam-like-at-Home, while leaving a margin for commercial negotiations between operators. By contrast, the provisions remain largely unchanged on fair use policy and sustainability as does the related implementing act that will continue to apply, given that the safeguard rules at retail level continue to work adequately.

On the consumers side, reducing the maximum wholesale charges applicable would also improve the situation for end users, since it affects price components that are calculated depending on their level, in particular the ceiling for surcharges under the fair use policy mechanism, the sustainability derogations and the data allowance of the fair use policy on open data bundles and pre-paid limits.

The proposal aimed also to ensure a genuine Roam-like-at-Home for end users and to facilitate innovation and access to networks, while establishing a future-proof regulatory framework for consumers and operators. It proposed to bring in new measures on transparency, quality of service and access to emergency communications:

(i) Increase transparency at retail level regarding (a) quality of service (by bringing in an obligation for operators to clarify in their contracts with customers the quality of service that they can reasonably expect when roaming in the EU); (b) communications on value-added services (by obliging operators to provide, in their contracts with customers, information on the type of services that may be subject to higher charges and similar information in the ‘welcome SMS’); (c) access to emergency services (by bringing in an obligation for operators to include information on the different possibilities to access emergency services when roaming in the ‘welcome SMS’).

(ii)  Give roaming customers a genuine Roam-like-at-Home experience in terms of quality of service (by obliging roaming providers to ensure, when technically feasible, that the roaming services are provided under the same conditions as if they were consumed domestically and mobile network operators to provide access to all available network technologies and generations).

(iii) Increase the level of transparency at wholesale level with regard to value-added-service numbering ranges by creating a centralised EU database for value-added-service numbering ranges.

(iv)  Ensure free-of-charge access to emergency services to customers while roaming, by taking specific measures at wholesale level

Lastly, the proposal would lift regulatory obligations where they are no longer needed and included several amendments aimed to simplify and reduce the regulatory burden.

Estimated savings and benefits

The proposal aimed to simplify the rules and reduce the burden in the following areas:

- Revising maximum wholesale charges by adopting a delegated act instead of revising the roaming regulation. The aim is to simplify and reduce the regulatory burden for the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council, and, to a lesser degree, BEREC and other stakeholders.

- Repealing the obligation for the separate sale of regulated retail roaming services, as this provision became ineffective when the Roam-like-at-Home rules were brought in. Repealing them will have a positive impact on operators by reducing the related maintenance costs and the burden of maintaining offers for separate sales of data roaming services.

- Repealing the implementing act on the weighted average of maximum mobile termination rates, because with the definition of a single maximum EU-wide mobile voice termination rate in the legislative proposal, this implementing act becomes redundant and the adoption process would be an unnecessary regulatory burden.

- Aligning the current provisions on how to set the maximum charges in currencies other than the euro. The proposed measure would bring clarity and reduce the administrative burden of operators outside the Eurozone that must publish their tariffs twice when the roaming surcharges or intra-EU communications tariffs are revised. It would also reduce the monitoring burden for National Regulatory Authorities in charge of monitoring the revised exchange rates.

- Streamlining the monitoring and reporting obligations by BEREC to reduce the administrative burden for operators, for National Regulatory Authorities and for BEREC.

Outcome of Legislative Procedure

The Regulation adopted by the co-legislators in April 2022 has extended the rules on roaming until 2032, in order to provide certainty in the market and minimise regulatory burdens.

The Commission will carry out reviews and submit reports to the European Parliament and to the Council in 2025 and 2029, followed, if appropriate, by a legislative proposal, where market developments so require, in particular given rapid market developments and the rapid roll-out of new technologies.