The study (EC-CNECT/2024/OP/0084) was conducted by MOZARK and informed the Commission 2025 Roaming Review Report. It shows that roaming users often experience lower quality of service when roaming compared to what they normally have at home, even when visited networks are technically capable of offering better performance. For example, download speeds were poorer than the home network and the visited network speeds in 76% and 80% of test cases respectively. The study also measured the time it takes for a mobile user to connect to a visited network when crossing an EU-border and showed that the cross-border handover in some case takes over 10 minutes.
The measurements were conducted across 20 EU Member States using nearly 50 SIM cards from various mobile network operators. The assessment compares roaming performance with home and visited network benchmarks. Key performance indicators include download and upload speeds, latency, and access to 5G networks. The study does not give indications or provide evidence for the reason why roaming performance can differ. The study does not prejudge any future policy decisions by the Commission in roaming, which will be based on a range of inputs.
You can download the full study (only available in English), its abstract and executive summary below.