After a decade-long lobby battle, consumers can finally use their mobile phones without fear of price hikes when travelling to another EU country.

Why it's important

About 10 years ago, for a 4-minute-long call, a Spanish customer roaming in Latvia paid up to €9.19, a Cypriot roaming in Belgium up to €12 and an Irish person roaming in Malta as much as €13.16. And up until April 2016, using 1 Gigabyte of data while roaming cost up to €200.

For consumers, that means:

• Telecom operators have to provide customers who roam the same quality of service than local customers. It was common, for example, for consumers to be put on lower speed networks like 3G even if it was feasible to connect them to a 5G network.
• Additional protections against bill shocks caused by connecting inadvertently to a non-EU mobile or a satellite network – for example, when travelling on boats and planes or close to the border with a non-EU country.
   

What BEUC did

Following a major BEUC survey in 2003 which showed how expensive it was to call, text or download data while abroad, the European Commission decided to intervene. It took ten years for the final legislation to pass but in 2017, high roaming charges became a thing of the past.

Some limitations as to the amount of data consumers can use when roaming still apply and we are carefully checking if operators abide by the rules. The European Union is, in early 2022, applying the finishing touches to a review which should improve the quality of service that consumers receive when they are roaming. It was common, for example, for consumers to be put on lower speed networks like 3G even if it was feasible to connect them to a 4G network.

This success of consumer organisations has made travelling in the EU a lot more fun and is the most popular decision among consumers that the EU has taken.