The surcharges authorised by ANCOM are capped in order to allow exclusively the recovery of the costs for the roaming services provided in the respective area and may be levied on all RCS&RDS customers consuming roaming services within the EEA starting from 1 July 2018, for a maximum 12-month term. So far, RCS&RDS prepaid cards are not roaming enabled. The operator may levy surcharges from the first consumption unit used while roaming in the EEA, only for made and received calls, respectively for data roaming (MB/GB). 

 

 

The caps for the roaming surcharges that may be levied by RCS&RDS are lower than last year’s ones (VAT excluded), as follows:

a) 0.0208 Euro/minute, for made calls (0.031 Euro/minute in 2017);

b) 0.0091 Euro/minute, for received calls, or any lower cap established at European level since the enforcement date (0.0108 Euro/minute in 2017);

c) 2.97 Euro/GB (0.00297 Euro/MB) (6.37 Euro/GB in 2017 for data roaming consumption from 30 June to 31 December 2017, respectively 4.9 Euro/GB (0.0049 Euro/MB), for data roaming consumption from 1 January to 30 June 2018).

For the calls made while roaming in the EEA, the RCS&RDS subscribers will pay only the surcharge - from the first minute - within the limit of the included domestic minutes, respectively the tariff for off-net calls and the surcharge, after the consumption of the included domestic minutes.   

For the calls received while roaming in the EEA, the RCS&RDS subscribers will pay only the surcharge, from the first minute.

For the data consumed while roaming in the EEA, the RCS&RDS subscribers will pay only the surcharge, from the first MB.   

Nevertheless, RCS&RDS can establish a Fair Use Policy for the resources used while roaming in the EEA, and subsequently provide services under the ”Roam like at home” EU regulations – further details are available here (item 7).      

 

 

According to the EU roaming regulations, mobile operators that are unable to commercially sustain “Roam like at home” – e.g. due to the low domestic tariffs charged – may request and may be authorised by the regulatory authority, upon assessment, to levy some sustainability surcharges on their users, in addition to the domestic tariffs.

So far, ANCOM has received two such requests from an operator in the Romanian market, both of them from RCS&RDS - in 2017 and in May 2018.

The surcharges authorised by the Authority are meant to ensure RCS&RDS’ capacity to recover the costs they incur in providing roaming services to their customers while in the EEA, without prejudice to the terms under which this operator provides mobile services on the Romanian market.

ANCOM’s authorisation is valid for 12 months and is available, in Romanian, here.

ANCOM will monitor RCS&RDS throughout this interval, to ensure that the operator complies with the authorised caps and does not recover more than the costs of providing roaming services within the EEA.