From 15 June 2017, retail roaming charges were abolished in the Union, subject to a fair use policy and a sustainability derogation. These roaming rules are widely known as "Roam-Like-At-Home" (RLAH).
The evidence presented in today’s report indicates that the rules on fair use policy and the sustainability derogation have adequately worked as safeguards to avoid distortions on domestic markets, as foreseen in the Roaming Regulation (EU) 2022/612.
Review of the Fair Use Policy
The Roaming Regulation requires the European Commission to periodically review the implementing act laying down detailed rules on (i) the application of fair use policy and (ii) the methodology for assessing the sustainability of the abolition of retail roaming surcharges and on the application to be submitted by a roaming provider for the purposes of that assessment. The review should take into account market developments to assess the effect the rules have had on end-users and operators and to determine whether the rules need to be amended.
The 2023 review is presented in the Staff Working Document published on this page. The findings are mostly based on data collected by BEREC for the Benchmark and Transparency reports, BEREC Opinion on the roaming market, Eurostat data on travel patterns, Commission studies on Mobile and Fixed Broadband Prices (2019, 2020, 2021) and the Flash Eurobarometer 521 on roaming. This is the second review presented by the Commission, following the first review published in 2019.
Main Findings
Most Europeans are aware of the roaming rules
The vast majority of Union residents enjoys mobile services while travelling in the EU/EEA with Roam-Like-at-Home conditions. Most Union residents are aware of the regime and, most importantly, a vast majority of consumers considers that they are benefiting from it. A significant part of Union residents declares that they are now using their phones in the same way abroad as in their home country. In terms of transparency, Union residents also found useful the Welcome SMS that they receive when entering another country, which includes personalised pricing information and roaming conditions while abroad.
Current safeguards are working
The review shows that the existing fair use policy measures have been widely implemented by operators and allowed them to ensure Roam-like-at-home benefits to periodic travellers while addressing abusive or anomalous use of roaming, although this entails some cost and complexity.
The sustainability derogation mechanism continues to be useful and to work effectively. Of the submitted derogation requests, most have been granted to providers with a small market share, and very few were rejected. There is a clear decreasing trend in the number of operators in need of sustainability derogations, as well as a clear reduction of the retail voice and data roaming services subject to sustainability surcharges.
The roaming reform has not affected domestic markets
Overall, no major impact has been observed on the domestic markets. The tariff structure and availability of domestic mobile subscription plans remain unchanged. The fair use policy mechanisms are providing a functional safeguard for roaming providers against arbitrage and risk of distortion of competition, in particular with potential consequential waterbed effects that would risk limiting the most competitive open bundle offers benefiting end-users in domestic mobile markets.
Next Steps
As required by the Roaming Regulation and in line with the Commission’s commitment to the Better Regulation principles, the Commission will carry out a full review of the roaming rules due by 30 June 2025.The Commission will also continue to undertake periodic review of the implementing acts, assessing potential market developments, as provided for in Article 7 of the Roaming Regulation.
Background
The ‘fair use policy’ is a set of measures the mobile roaming providers can apply to their customers for preventing abusive or anomalous use of roaming services beyond periodic travelling in the EU/EEA.
The ‘sustainability derogation’ is a legal mechanism by which mobile roaming providers may be granted, at their request, a derogation to apply surcharges for roaming services provided to their customers in another EU/EEA country. To be granted such a derogation, mobile roaming providers must demonstrate to the competent national regulatory authorities that they are not able to recover their actual and projected costs of providing regulated roaming services without increasing their domestic prices. Therefore, sustainability derogations are granted strictly in order to allow the cost recovery of providing roaming services to customers and to avoid any domestic price increase. Sustainability derogations are granted for a one-year period, which may be periodically renewed if the justifying circumstances remain unchanged.