At its 16th Plenary meeting, on 26 September 2013, the Board of Regulators of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) approved the 3rd International Roaming Compliance Report, providing information on the extent to which mobile operators throughout the European area are in compliance with the 2012 Roaming Regulation [Regulation (EC) no. 531/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2013 (3rd Roaming Regulation)].
The report found a high level of compliance with the Regulation and found that the vast majority of mobile network operators (MNO) are complying with the obligation to provide wholesale access to other MNOs, MVNOs and re-sellers. In the most part, existing bilateral roaming agreements are being used, so that MNO reference offers were rarely requested.
The new regulated wholesale and retail tariffs are available to both access seeking operators and to consumers. However, BEREC detected some cases, in the context of national tariffs charged for bundles of services, where operators were failing to apply the Eurotariff by default and instead were applying an alternative roaming tariff, meaning that that new customers have not always been allowed to make a deliberate choice.
However, no problems were detected in switching between alternative data tariffs and the data-Eurotariff. BEREC also found an increasing level of compliance with regard to data billing (except in the case of MMS billing, where the unit of billing or the price charged was not always in accordance with the Regulation).
In general, customers are being properly informed about their data consumption, although there have been some delays in the implementation of the anti-bill-shock measure in the context of communications made by customers of the European Union (EU) / European Economic Area (EEA) in countries outside the EEA. Operators may also have to make some technical adjustments in order to provide transparency measures for new devices such as tablets.
Operators have complied with the obligation to implement measures which prevent inadvertent roaming in border regions.
In light of the results obtained, BEREC has made a number of recommendations, including on certain aspects of the Regulation that warrant special oversight by national regulatory authorities (NRA).
Further information:
- BEREC International Roaming Compliance Report (Regulation (EU) No 531/512 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2012 on roaming) http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/reports/1482-berec-international-roaming-compliance-report-regulation-eu-no-531512-of-the-european-parliament-and-of-the-council-of-13-june-2012-on-roaming
- International Roaming BEREC Benchmark Data Report July 2012 - March 2013 http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/reports/1483-international-roaming-berec-benchmark-data-report-july-2012-8211-march-2013
