In a judgement which had been a long time coming, the European Union that today announced that mobile roaming charges will no longer pe applicable when you travel across the twenty-eight member states. This means mobile roaming on your device will be free, well, almost because you could up paying huge sums if you don’t mind some of the exceptions in this ruling.
Talking about this landmark decision, the EU issued the following statement:
The European Union is about bringing people together and making their lives easier. The end of roaming charges is a true European success story.
From now on, citizens who travel within the EU will be able to call, text and connect on their mobile devices at the same price as they pay at home. Eliminating roaming charges is one of the greatest and most tangible successes of the EU.
The European Union sees this ‘Roam like at home‘ initiative as the building block for a unified and sustainable European digital society, accessible for all our citizens. The deal is, however, not as rosy as it may sound to you from the get go but it is definitely a positive change for the netizens of the said region.
Presently, most roaming mobile plans charge you a fortune when making calls or using mobile data from a foreign country — even within the EU. These excess charges have been nixed in favor of homely plans, meaning you will be charged according to the same plan which you had been using in your hometown (described as a location where you stay for around eight months). You shouldn’t expect a humongous phone bill when you come home, but this also doesn’t mean that you can exploit the freedom.
The EU has also installed some fair use policies that will limit the citizens from consuming high amounts of data bandwidth during their trip across countries. This means you’ll not have complete freedom to insistently download movies on the go. The carriers are first going to issue a warning but if you still exceed the fair use barrier then you should be ready to shell out €7.70 per GB of mobile data and taxes. The charges are, however, expected to drop and reach close to €2.50 per GB + taxes as of 2022.
As for those aloof, every one of the 28 countries of the Europen Union, namely Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom will be exempt from roaming charges. So, residents or travelers moving between any of these countries will be charged a fixed calling rate.
The official ruling further continues to mention:
Roaming charges will now be a thing of the past. As of tomorrow, you will be able to remain connected while travelling in the EU, for the same price as at home.
The EU mentions that the new roaming laws will be considerate for both the consumers, as well as telecom operators, who may see a spike in their network usage by consumers in foreign European countries. The judgment states that today’s decision was long due and carriers had been given close to two years to prepare for the end of roaming charges. They, however, still have been given power to introduce minor charges on roaming calls and data usage. But, a stay as lengthy as four months will incur extra charges.
