The same services, in terms of phone calls, sending messages and web browsing, that citizens and businesses have at home. But also better information on the types of services that may incur additional costs, such as calls to customer support numbers, helpdesks or insurance companies. Or even tools to avoid additional costs, such as the option not to connect to non-terrestrial networks and automatic interruption of roaming services when the consumer reaches a total cost of 50 euros, or another predefined limit, to avoid additional costs.
A new roaming regulation comes into force which will continue to allow telephone services to be used in the EU “like at home” for the next 10 years, but with an improved version. All in the wake of the “Roam-like-at-home” program which allows citizens to continue using their mobile phones when they go abroad – but the measures are valid only within the EU – at no additional cost to the tariffs national.
Path
The previous regulation, introduced in 2017, expired on 30 June. The European legislators have therefore decided to extend the validity of the current rules for another 10 years, introducing further benefits for consumers. This was achieved in an intermediate step, in November 2019, with the Commission publishing an in-depth review of the roaming market, showing that travelers across the EU have significantly benefited from the abolition of roaming charges. The Commission also conducted, in the period from June to September 2020, a public consultation to gather opinions on retail and wholesale roaming services and on the impact of the extension and review of these rules.
L’Eurobarometro
In the latest Eurobarometer of February 2021, 33% of respondents who traveled abroad said they had access to a slower internet connection speed than what is usually offered in their country and 28% said they had access to a lower network standard abroad (i.e. a 3G network instead of 4G).
Faster mobile internet when traveling
Consumers will now be entitled to the same quality of mobile internet abroad as they do in their own country. Consumers will have access abroad in the EU to the same services they have access to in their own country, as long as the same networks and technologies are available on the network in the visited Member State. The roaming customer who can use 5G services in his own country should have such roaming services, if they are available in the visited Member State.