[wolfbln]

Yes, there is good news and bad news in Europe.

The good news first: We will have no more roaming surcharges from June 15th, 2017 in 28 EU and 3 EEA countries. The Roam like at Home principle is now final and concerns all voice, SMS and most data for all EU-based providers on a SIM card issued in the EU.

While some big telcos have applauded this step like Vodafone that has own branded networks or partner networks in every country, smaller operators are much more critical about it. The cap on wholesale prices of €7.70 per GB that was agreed to in February is not enough for them.

So here is the bad news: Some telcos try to avoid or undermine this new roaming regulation, before it has even started. Here are some of their measures:
- some simply raise prices and say it's because of roaming
- some simply stop to offer internatl. roaming on some plans
- some try to outsource data volumes from their plans to "bonuses" or "benefits" not to be offered for roaming without surcharges
- some will apply the "sustainability clause" (see below)

There is one common concern: data rates are very different from country to country. For instance in Germany still €10/$11 per GB are payed, while in neighboring Poland there are prepaid plans offering 1GB for 1Zloty (that's €0.23/$0.25!). So there is a real danger that users from "expensive" countries will buy a SIM in a "cheap" country and use it permanently roaming at home. Thus all local or national pricing would be undercut.

So the EU agreed finally on some principles to guarantee "sustainability". It's essentially a FUP regulation. On cheap data plans or packages, not all of the included data needs to be given out for "roam like at home" (= without surcharges at the domestic rate), but only a certain quota. It's a minimum of around 2.2GB for a €10 plan or 4.5GB for a €20 plan. Overuse fee is again capped at the wholesale cap of €7.70 per GB plus local taxes.

Many operators from cheap countries will employ this FUP. So it's not all "Roam like at home", but as close as it can possibly get. The wholesale caps will come down in the next 5 years to €2.50 per GB resulting in lower prices all over.

But there is a lot of uncertainty amongst the smaller providers who don't have a pan-European network in their back as they are afraid to lose revenues. It may lead to another consolidation of the telco industry on the continent when they add up figures after this roaming summer.

For the consumer, it surely means lower prices for roaming in the EU, but the gaps remain with countries not part of the regulation like Switzerland and possibly the UK in a few years. Some providers will charge 1000-times higher rates there for roaming! Well, this is still Europe: better look on a map before.