Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Telephone Operator abolishing roaming charges in the EU – a year in advance – Business Week

Roaming charges are soon a thing of the past for the operator’s customers.

The European Parliament has decided to scrap all extra charges when you call or surfing abroad – so called roaming. Telephone operator Telenor becoming the first company to remove roaming charges in the EU.

READ ALSO: Forget roaming fees – already next year abolished the EU

For all operators, roaming fee to disappear in 2017, and in April the price ceiling was lowered to 50 cents minute and 50 cents per megabyte. But Telenor feel extra generous this year. As of June 15, they offer their customers the same prices as in Sweden in 36 other EU countries.

In the brawl on roaming charges is over. The opposing side has mainly consisted of countries with a lot of tourism such as Spain and Greece. Its domestic telecom companies have received extra revenues through roaming charges.

The telecom industry has also warned that the risk of seeing reduced revenue – money that could be used to expand and improve the network capacity , according to SvD.
EU Parliament has chosen a line that charges will disappear completely from the middle of 2017.

however, there will be an exemption where operators can continue to charge fees – permanent roaming. That is, if someone buys a SIM card in EU countries where prices are lower and then use it in their home country, according to SvD.

The Swedish MEPs Conservative Hökmark was not entirely happy, but said that the vote is only a first step. He believes that the issue of network interconnection between operators also must be lifted. That is to say cars you through Europe, you can at any land border need to connect to the operators that have signed agreements with your Swedish telecom company.

“Roaming is one of the last frontier controls we have in the EU. It is only when you regulate the price of all EU operators that you can remove roaming charges altogether, said Gunnar Hökmark, according to SvD.

READ ALSO: Data: Google to launch a global telecommunications network without roaming charges

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