Let roaming fees hang around for a while longer, EU countries say

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The Council of the European Union -- the part of the EU legislature that represents member states -- has formally laid out its stance on changing incoming legislation around roaming and network neutrality. This means negotiations with the European Parliament can formally commence, and as some parliamentarians warned, this will be a feisty fight.

The Council’s position opposes the Commission and Parliament’s original intention of eliminating roaming surcharges for those travelling within the EU by the end of 2015. Instead, from mid-2016 people would get to use a daily 5MB “basic roaming allowance” when crossing borders that would be the same as domestic mobile data costs. Above that, operators will be able to charge extra for roaming, but not more than the wholesale costs levied by the carrier whose network is being roamed onto. It would only be in mid-2018 that member states would ask the Commission to “assess … what further measures may be needed with a view to phasing out roaming charges” and then maybe propose new laws. In other words, the Council wants the abolition of roaming fees to be put on ice, despite the widespread push for a European digital single market.


Let roaming fees hang around for a while longer, EU countries say