European Union, international roaming, GSM tech

We’ve been talking about European Union (EU) roaming fees getting cheaper for a long time, but now European roaming fees are completely abolished, at least mostly, thanks to “Roam Like at Home” , which will apply to all voice calls, texts and data for anyone subscribing to an EU operator and roaming in another member state (SIMs from other countries and even many international roaming carriers are not covered of course).

According to The European Commission:

“Phone calls, SMS and going online with your mobile device from another EU country will be covered in the national bundle. The minutes of calls, SMS and megabytes of data that a person consumes abroad within the EU will be charged the same as at home.

As long as a person periodically travels and spends more time in his home country than abroad over any 4-month period, they will fully benefit from Roam Like at Home.”

It’s worth noting that carriers may set a fair use limit on unlimited plans. For these instances, users can look forward to a charge €7.7 + VAT per gigabyte, falling to €2.50 by 2022.

It’s also worth mentioning that customers might also be asked to pay more if they stay in another country within the EU longer than the country to which the SIM belongs. And a small number of operators in some regions are exempt due to their “very low domestic prices.”

It’s not clear how Brexit will affect UK and EU roaming relationships after its scheduled wrap-up in March 2019, but it’s possible the UK operators could opt to allow their users the same at-home roaming rates. It’s also possible that the carriers will revert to a U.S.-like rate. Some carriers such as Three UK have promised that rates will not increase post-Brexit, but others have stated the opposite or aren’t as optimistic about the future of the EU-UK roaming relationships post-Brexit. We’ll just have to wait and see.

What do you think about the exit of roaming charges from the EU and the relationship between the EU and the UK? Let us know in the comments!

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By Josh Robert Nay

Josh Robert Nay is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TruTower. He has worked in the telecommunications industry since 2003 and specializes in GSM based technology. He also uses (too many) VoIP apps and is a long-time user of BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Phone. He adores anything having to do with space exploration and writing. In addition to the links below, he can be found on LinkedIn and can also be found on his website at http://www.joshrobertnay.com.