With free EU-wide roaming coming into force next year, the European Commission on Monday issued a draft fair usage policy (FUP) designed to stop consumers abusing the system.
Under the proposed rules, customers will be entitled to 90 days of free roaming per year, and will be obliged to connect to their roaming provider's home network at least once every 30 days. These measures aim to stop permanent roaming, where people buy a SIM card in a country where prices are cheaper and then use it full-time in their home market.
"Such situations could have a negative impact on domestic prices, and ultimately on all consumers," the Commission said, in a statement.
The draft document also states that the 90-day/30-day rules do not apply to customers who connect to a foreign network as well as their home network within one day. This protects subscribers who travel to another country on a daily basis for work, or who live near a border.
There are also limits applicable to customers on unlimited tariff plans. Under the proposals, they are allowed to use the average volume of service – whether it is minutes, texts, or data – consumed by all customers on that same tariff without incurring roaming charges. With this, the Commission hopes to prevent roaming providers picking up the tab for very heavy data users.
Meanwhile, prepaid customers are required to have used at least a typical month's worth of credit on their domestic network before they are eligible for free roaming. This is to make sure that customers don't use a SIM card exclusively for free roaming.
If an operator finds that a customer is abusing the rules, said customer will be given two weeks to change their behaviour or they will face a surcharge.
The Commission said it needs to consult with BEREC and member states before the rules can be finalised and adopted.