The European Commission has revised its plan to end roaming charges within the EU, announcing a new draft of the rules designed to prevent abuses of the system.
The first draft roaming fair use policy was withdrawn earlier this month within days of its announcement, due to criticism from consumer groups.
Because the original policy would have introduced an at least 90 day cap on the time spent roaming on domestic prices, consumer groups complained that this would defeat the purpose of the Roam like at Home policy - ending roaming within the EU.
Instead, the new draft fair use policy would provide safeguards for operators including checks to ensure customers are using roaming to travel as intended, instead of taking advantage of cheaper prices in another market.
These would include criteria including insignificant domestic compared to roaming traffic, inactivity of a SIM used mostly or exclusively for roaming and subscription and sequential use of multiple SIMs by the same traveller.
In such cases, operators would be able to apply small surcharges – proposed at a cap of €0.04 per minute per call, €0.01 per SMS and €0.0085 per MB.
Operators would also be able to temporarily apply the same surcharges if they can provide evidence that the Roam like at Home policy was putting their domestic charging model at risk or having other negative effects for domestic customers.
The EC aims to introduce the Roam like at Home regime by June next year.
Source: http://www.telecomasia.net/content/ec-revises-plan-end-roaming-rates
