Local mobile phone rates could increase as a result of new proposals on the EU’s plans to remove roaming charges, Maltese MEPs have warned.
Mobile phone roaming fees will be eliminated across the EU by June 2017 on the strength of an agreement reached last year, with users paying the same price for calls, texts and mobile data whether at home or travelling anywhere in Europe.
However, while travellers will no longer pay added fees when abroad, telecom operators will still be able to charge one another for the data consumed as customers roam across their networks.
Lawmakers agree these charges should be capped but are deadlocked over where the caps should be set.
Telecom operators will still be able to charge one another for data consumed as users roam
“My fear is that if the cap is raised too high, then companies may raise domestic prices for consumers,” MEP Roberta Metsola, a member of the Internal Market and Consumer Affairs Committee, told the Times of Malta. “That is something I would want to avoid, and I am hopeful that in the coming negotiations we will find a way forward,” she said, calling for a solution “that protects consumers and definitively ends roaming without raising prices at home”.
The European Parliament has recommended a ‘low’ wholesale price cap of 0.5 cents per mega-byte, but the Slovak EU Presidency is now proposing that it be 1.05 cents, more than double the Parliament’s suggestions.
Independent research puts the actual wholesale data cost in the range of 0.28-0.67 cents per megabyte, with the majority of EU countries falling below the 0.5 cents mark.
MEP Marlene Mizzi, the S&D Group spokeswoman on consumer rights and a member of the negotiating team on the roaming legislation, said the difficulties were down to differences in wholesale pricing among member states, which would have to be harmonised before consumers could benefit from free roaming.
“At the same time, the agreed capping also needs to allow all operators to provide roaming free services, without this leading to market distortions, increased domestic prices and dangerous effects to the detriment of end users,” Ms Mizzi said. “There are still ongoing discussions on how this balance can be reached.”
A final decision is likely to be reached by government ministers later this year, with a group of 14 ‘like-minded’ countries insisting the caps be kept low, while larger countries like Germany, France and Spain are pushing for higher prices. The Maltese government has not yet stated a position.
“The proposed wholesale caps are too high to secure a sustainable introduction of roam-like-at-home (RLAH) and should be significantly lowered,” the ‘like-minded’ group, which includes Belgium, Netherlands, the UK and Baltic and Scandinavian states, said in a position paper.
“Already today, retail offers across the EU are much lower than the proposed data wholesale cap.
“If the caps are kept at the currently proposed level, it will unnecessarily hamper the introduction of RLAH, and there is a real risk that it will hurt competition and lead to market distortions and waterbed effects to the detriment of end users.”