EU
leaders hailed the abolition of roaming fees across Europe, but
critics say the level set for wholesale rates will create market
imbalances which will be detrimental to consumers.
Consumer surcharges for roaming services across EU countries were banned at midnight.
The
legislation is the culmination of a lengthy regulatory
process and heated negotiations between industry stakeholders
and even conflicting parties within the European Parliament,
Commission and Council.
Wholesale
price caps,the last piece of the legislation to be put in place, were finalised in April, yet the criticism of this section of
the policy continues.
Trade
association MVNO Europe – which counts some of the continent’s
largest MVNOs as members – said the level of wholesale surcharges
operators are allowed to charge each other created market imbalances.
In
a statement, the organisation called for the European Commission to
conduct an in-depth analysis of roaming surcharges for all services,
pointing specifically to the risk for IoT deployments.
MVNO
Europe VP Innocenzo Genna said: “The entire mechanism, in
particular the wholesale caps, must be strongly revised to eliminate
competitive unbalances that, at the end, would be detrimental for the
consumer in terms of tariffs, variety of offers and innovation.”
Market
failureIn
a joint statement ahead of the law taking effect, Antonio Tajani,
president of the European Parliament, European Commission president
Jean-Claude Juncker, and Malta’s PM Joseph Muscat –
on behalf of the EU Council – called the abolition of roaming
services “one of the greatest and most tangible successes of the
EU”.
They
said: “Over the last 10 years, our institutions have been working
hard together to fix this market failure.”
“The
EU has managed to find the right balance between the end of roaming
charges and the need to keep domestic mobile packages competitive and
attractive. Operators have had two years to prepare for the end of
roaming charges, and we are confident that they will seize the
opportunities the new rules bring to the benefit of their customers.”
Operator
responseFollowing
final sign-off of the policy in April, several operators have
attempted to use the end of roaming charges as a marketing tool.
Some
have also added additional destinations outside of the EU bloc as an
differentiator for their services.
However,
the impact on the bottom lines is still unknown and several
companies warned during Q1 investor meetings they were braced
for the impact.
Swedish
Group Tele2 said it expected
earnings for
the second half of the year would be hit, while Vodafone Group
reported reduced roaming revenue had already impacted its UK
performance in the financial year ended 31 March 2017.
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