Ancom - Tarife mai mici de roaming pentru călătoriile în UE de la 1 iulie 2014

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Cheaper Roaming Rates in the EU as of 1 July 2014

18.06.2014

Starting 1 July 2014, the Romanian mobile telephony and mobile Internet users will benefit from cheaper roaming rates when travelling within the European Union, if they choose the basic tariff plan, i.e. the Eurotariff. The rate cuts will range between 20 and 55% as compared to the currently applicable rates. Thus, the users will pay maximum EUR 0.19 per minute (excluding VAT) for an outgoing voice call, 0.05 euro/minute (excluding VAT) for incoming voice calls and 0.06 euro (excluding VAT) for an outgoing text (SMS). The most significant reduction concerns the data services (including Internet access), for which the operators will be able to apply a rate of maximum 0.20 euro/MB (excluding VAT).

These price caps are the maximum allowed prices which the providers are obligated to observe within the basic tariff plan (the Eurotariff), but this does not prevent them from making available to their clients lower rates or other tariff plans, such as those included in the special offers for holidays. ANCOM recommends the users to analyse the offer of their providers before going abroad, in order to choose the tariff plan best suited to their communication needs. In order to compare the telephony and internet rates, the users are invited to access www.veritel.ro, the telecom price comparison tool developed by ANCOM.

The operators will apply the new rates by default and free of charge to the users who have activated their roaming service and use the basic tariff plans, without concluding additional subscriptions. As well, in order to avoid the bill shock generated by data roaming, the users travelling abroad receive warnings by SMS, e-mails or pop-up windows when the cost of the downloaded data nears or exceeds the default cut-off limit of EUR 50 or any other limit specified by the user.

ANCOM wishes to warn the users who have activated a roaming service and are in their home country, yet close to the border that their telephone could automatically connect to the network of the neighbouring country (involuntary roaming) and they could be applied roaming tariffs, paying also for the incoming calls. In order to avoid this situation, they shouldeitherselect their network manually, require their operator to activate the roaming service only upon request or check the telephone network before using the handset. The localities identified by ANCOM as having a potential risk of involuntary roaming are available for consultation here.

Further information on the use and costs of the roaming service may be found on the ANCOM website, here.

The InfoCentre section on ANCOM’s website contains useful information on the electronic communications (telephony, Internet and television) services and postal services, aimed at helping the users in choosing and using these services. Such information refers to contract conclusion, charging, quality of service, terminal unlocking or roaming. Moreover, the users can find here dedicated guidelines regarding, for example, telephone fraud or Internet access services.