The ‘telecos’ do not plan to apply surcharges for the use of the mobile in the United Kingdom after the completion of Brexit

The operators of Spain Telefónica, Orange, Vodafone and MásMóvil do not foresee to apply any surcharge as of this Saturday by roaming (roaming) when using the mobile phone in the United Kingdom, despite Brexit, pending a possible agreement reached by the parties on wholesale rates.

One of the operators that have already taken action on the matter has been Telefónica, which has begun working with the British Government to ensure that the rates of roaming wholesalers, that is to say, the tariffs that some operators can charge to others, form part of the future agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom, according to have informed sources of Telefónica.

Although the United Kingdom is already a non-EU country, a transition period has been opened to negotiate the future link between the parties.

The matter of roaming The British Government has to decide, they have commented from Telefónica, that it does not have a priori plans to reapply this surcharge and that it wants to ensure that customers “continue to receive the service they expect and need when the United Kingdom leaves the EU.”

The end of the mobile surcharge in the EU

On June 15, 2017, new legislation came into force in the countries of the European Union (EU) that eliminated the extra costs for using the mobile roaming in Member States other than the user's origin. In fact, Brussels promised to monitor any possible rise in national rates.

During these two and a half years, this agreement has been maintained and a call from London cost exactly the same as another from Leon. The same happened with messages and data, in an initiative that was renamed “Roam like at home, RLAH” (traveling at home). As of today, the rates remain the same and at least in the short term no changes are expected, the four operators have confirmed.

Orange has ensured that it maintains its current pricing policy in reference to Spanish customers traveling to the United Kingdom; Vodafone has affirmed that the roaming conditions with this country will not be affected by its exit from the EU and MásMóvil has ruled on the same terms, all of them in the short term pending the agreements reached.

The question is whether or not the tariffs that will be charged to some companies will be maintained, which in June 2017 were set at 32 cents per minute for calls and 1 cent for messages, in the sense of whether they will remain at the future or not. In data, a progressive reduction was expected: 7.7 euros per gigabyte as of June 15, 2017; 6 euros as of January 1, 2018; 4.5 euros in 2019; 3.5 euros in 2020; 3 euros in 2021 and 2.5 euros in 2022. These rates have not changed at the moment, as confirmed by sources of several operators and today, February 1, they are still in force.

A fight from the European Commission

Since 2007, the European Commission has been struggling to reduce roaming prices paid by consumers and, in 2013, this body proposed a regulation to end roaming charges to people traveling periodically in the EU.

In October 2015, the European Parliament and the Council agreed that this regulation should enter into force as of June 15, 2017 and so it was, according to sources from the European Commission itself.

In fact, before June 15, 2017, most of the mobile phone companies operating in the European markets had advanced to the deadline, except for companies such as Telefónica or the Italian Tim, which rushed until that day.

Last November, the European Commission published a first review of the data roaming market, and concluded that the use of mobile phones has increased tenfold since its implementation with respect to the year prior to the suppression of the roaming “The roaming market of the European Union (EU) is still working well. National prices for mobile phone services have fallen globally across the EU,” said European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel.

The price limits were scheduled to continue decreasing at least until 2022. The question will be whether this will affect the United Kingdom as well.