EU roaming is now free

Beginning today, June 15, the EU’s directive says mobile carriers cannot charge any extra to use your phone in Europe than they would for you to use it in your ‘home’ country. As the name “Roam Like Home” suggests, this ensures you won’t suffer from bill shock – unexpected and significantly larger-than-normal mobile phone bills when traveling.

Sounds great, right? It sure does! But now that this concept has made its way into reality, what exactly do you need to know about this new law? How does it impact roaming outside of Europe?

What’s this all about?

For years, the European Commission has been trying to abolish roaming charges and has met plenty of opposition from carriers in the process. Yet, tackling the fundamental problem of the high fees between carriers applies a level playing field and allows this directive to be implemented.

The law applies to all new and existing contracts. As I found out with one of the carriers in the UK (more on that below), chances are you don’t need to do anything to be eligible for it. Putting the onus on the carrier to get everyone activated with no input from customers means the Commission can ensure there are no more surprises.

The law essentially means you can roam from your home European country to all the other European countries listed by your carrier and not pay any charges for making and receiving calls, texts, or using data. Instead of being charged an inflated fee for usage while roaming in another country, your carrier instead has to deduct the usage from your regular monthly allowance.

If you have Unlimited minutes or texts, these remain unlimited and can be used to call the country you’re roaming in, your home country, and any other European country. Calls to non-geographic, premium rate, and other non-standard numbers aren’t included and have an additional charge. Crucially, you can’t use this for free calls to a European country when in your home country; this is only for roaming.

For data usage, it would come out of your regular allowance, so if you have 5 GB of data at home, you’ll be able to use the same 5 GB when roaming. Of course, that 5 GB is collective for use at home and abroad (not individually) so if you use 4 GB while roaming and 2 GB at home, there may be additional charges due.

Now, for users who have a package with a large data allowance, the calculation is a little more interesting. First, your carrier can only apply a data cap when the amount you pay per gigabyte (after dividing your monthly rental by the inclusive gigabyte data allowance) is less than €3.85/GB. This will drop to less than €3/GB in 2018 and even further to less than €2.25/GB in 2019.

If your carrier doesn’t tell you about any cap when roaming, you get to use your full allowance. I think it’s safe to say that almost all carriers will impose these limits where they can so how do they calculate it? You divide the price of your mobile phone bundle (excluding VAT) by €7.70 (the max a carrier has to pay for 1 GB of roaming data in 2017) and the cap must be double that calculation.

Here are two examples from the EU:

Example 1: At home you have a mobile bundle including unlimited calls, SMS and 3 GB of data for €30 (€25 excluding 20% VAT). In this case, €25/3GB = €8.3/GB. When travelling in the EU, you get roam like at home with unlimited calls and SMS, and 3 GB of data, exactly like at home.

Example 2: At home you have a mobile bundle including unlimited calls, SMS and 10 GB of data for €30 (€25 excluding 20% VAT). The calculation is €25 /10GB=€2.5/GB. When travelling in the EU, you get RLAH with unlimited calls and SMS, and at least 6.5 GB of data (2*(25/7.7) =6.5). If the operator wishes to apply such a data limit while roaming, they must clearly inform you of the volume available and whenever you have consumed that volume while abroad.

Keeping up with us? No? I don’t blame you really – this is rather complicated. But stick with us… we’re almost there.