15.06.2018

15 June 2018 – ”Roam like at home” has been in force for a year now, and the Romanians have fully benefitted from this EU Regulation. In 2017, the roaming traffic soared: the traffic of calls made tripled (from 0.5 billion minutes in 2016 to 1.5 billion in 2017), the traffic of calls received increased by +81% (to 2 billion minutes), while data traffic grew 6 times, reaching 5,811 TB in 2017, declared Sorin Grindeanu, President of ANCOM.

Charging EU/EEA roaming consumption

Where the roaming service is active, the basic principle of Roam like at home provides that the whole domestic allowance in the tariff plan (including add-ons or bonuses) becomes available in EU/EEA roaming, as well (EU member states, plus Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein).

Warning! Roam like at home is applicable only to occasional trips outside the country where the communications service has been purchased.

1.    Calls and SMS:

Starting from 15 June 2017, within the limits of a fair use policy, calls (minutes) made and SMS sent while roaming to any destination in the EU/EEA (including to all the telephone numbers in Romania) will be deducted from the included domestic minutes and SMS, up to the consumption of such allowance. After the consumption of this allowance, the tariffs applicable in Romania, for off-net traffic, will be charged. Calls and SMS received in EU/EEA roaming are free of charge.   

2.    Internet - data (MB/GB):

For most tariff plans including data allowances offered in Romania - open data bundles -, the providers can set a fair use policy (FUP) limit to data (MB/GB) resources that may be consumed while roaming in the EU/EEA with no additional charges (either deducted from the included allowance or charged by the data tariff applicable in Romania, depending on the available data resources). After exceeding this FUP limit, a surcharge will be levied. The surcharge may be added to the data tariff applicable in Romania, where the dataresources have been consumed, but the resulting amount cannot exceed 0.2 Euro/MB. For the period 1 January – 31 December 2018, the surcharge cannot exceed 6 Euro/GB (0.006 Euro/MB), VAT not included. This surcharge will gradually decrease until 2022.  

Further details on how this data consumption is charged are available (in Romanian) here.  

Further details on the FUP limits for data roaming in EU/EEA, including calculation models are available here.

Roam like at home data roaming calculator: an ANCOM widget

For helping the users to find the FUP limit for the data they can consume while roaming in the EU/EEA, ANCOM developed a widget application, available here.

This application generates relevant results for all the users of tariff plans with roaming access, excepting the users of RCS & RDS S.A.. This operator has been authorised to levy roaming surcharges from the first consumption unit.

Fair use policy

In order to prevent abusive or abnormal use of EU/EEA roaming services, i.e. the roaming consumption for other purposes than occasional trips outside Romania – e.g. the permanent use of roaming services in the EU/EEA –, a provider may apply a fair use policy (FUP).

The providers may apply surcharges to users that exceed the FUP limit, in the following cases:

• the user fails to present, upon the providers’ request, a proof regarding his/her prevalent place of residence or the existence of permanent links with Romania;
• the provider monitors the mobile services consumption (minutes, SMS, data), and presence (network connection) domestically, over a 4-month period, and finds that roaming consumption prevails;
• the services are used mostly or exclusively in roaming, after a long inactivity period.

A provider’s FUP must observe certain limits provided by EU regulations. Find more details, in Romanian, here.  

About what, how and where one can complain

If you have a complaint regarding the Roam like at home service, you must first address the provider from which you purchased the tariff plan. If the vendor has not settled your complaint, you can contact ANCOM following the steps presented here.