What Changes Will the EU Roaming Regulation Bring?
On June 15, the new EU roaming regulation will enter into force bringing significant reduction to the cost of using mobile services in the EU. The change will affect some Telia customers, but not all.
The purpose of the roaming regulation coming into effect on June 15 is to end roaming charges for people travelling in the EU.
Telia was the first to launch plans that abolished roaming fees already on April 20. Renewed Mobile Life and Mobile Business plans enable to use mobile data, messaging and voice in EU countries at Estonian rates. This has made travelling in Europe cheaper and more convenient than ever before. Thus, nothing will change on June 15 for those customers who use the renewed Mobile Life and Mobile Business plans that were launched on April 20.
The Estonian Technical Surveillance Authority (TSA) granted permission for Telia to use the sustainability exception. This makes it possible for Telia to retain intra-Estonian plans for those customers who do not yet use Mobile Life and Mobile Business plans. Thus, their current prices and allowances will remain unchanged after June 15 and using mobile services in EU will be charged as per new roaming price list.
From June 15, the price of using mobile data in EU will drop by six-fold – from 6 cents to 0.9 cents. For example, using 1 GB of data in EU will cost less than €10 (previously €60). Additionally, voice and messaging roaming rates will be scrapped as well – voice rate will drop from 6 cents to 3.8 cents and messaging rate will decrease from 2.4 cents to 1.2 cents.
Thus, the roaming regulation will push prices down by:
- 36% for voice services
- 85% for mobile data
- 50% for messaging
Within EU | Prices valid until 2017/06/14 | Prices valid from 2017/06/15 |
---|---|---|
Calling | 0,06 €/min | 0,0384 €/min |
Receiving calls | 0,013 €/min | 0,013 €/min |
Messaging | 0,024 €/sms | 0,012 €/sms |
Mobile data | 0,06 €/MB | 0,009 €/MB |
If you want to use voice, messaging and mobile data across EU at Estonian rates, switch to the new Mobile Life or Mobile Business plan launched on April 20. These plans include mobile data allowance to be used in EU at domestic rates. On average, residential customers use 4 GB of mobile data each month, and by subscribing to the Mobile Life 4 GB plan they will have 3 GB of intra-EU mobile data allowance. This means saving €27 in roaming costs. Additionally, Mobile Life and Mobile Business plans enable sharing mobile data with 5 different devices, which makes travelling with a family much easier.