If you like to travel, you will know what roaming is . Receive this name the special rate to call by phone when you are abroad. Its cost is significantly higher than normal, so its suppression in the European Union made it much cheaper to communicate while we are in one of the countries that make up the community. We review in detail everything you need to know about roaming and the consequences it can have for your pocket.
what is roaming
Roaming is a rate applied by operators when we travel to a foreign country . It affects the sending and receiving of calls, SMS and the cost of mobile data. The reason why it is much more expensive than the contracted one is that our telephone company does not have antennas in the place where we have moved and, therefore, it will have to rent it from a local company. The cost of this action is transferred to the user, usually excessively.
The end of roaming in Europe
The extra cost that European citizens had to face when they traveled between the countries of the European Union caught the attention of the European Commission, which qualified this rate as a scam, indicating that the amount to be paid by users was exorbitant considering account the cost of renting the services that the telephone companies had to pay.
It is for this reason that the EU organizations decreed the end of roaming between those mobile services carried out between member states. In this way, as of June 15, 2017 , making a call, writing a message or surfing the internet in the common space no longer meant that we had to pay additional money at the rate contracted in our country.
In which countries the end of roaming was applied
Only those who are part of the European Union . For this reason, traveling to any other destination means that you have to pay for roaming and that you may have a high telephone bill. In this sense, there are operators that have simplified their offer and are not as abusive as they used to be, aware of the existence of apps like Skype that allow you to make calls for free if you have an internet connection.
Therefore, if you travel to any destination outside the European continent, roaming will be applied. A specific case pending analysis is the United Kingdom, because until all the commercial consequences of its departure from the European Union are clarified, it is not known what the rates for calling from there will be.
Limitations of the end of roaming in Europe
The elimination of roaming by the European Commission did not prevent it from continuing to be subject to some limitations. Those users who abuse this option could be forced to contract a line in the country where they reside.
This is because the European Union set a fixed price for operators to rent each other’s networks. This amount is for calls at 3.2 cents per minute, SMS at 1 cent and €7.7 per GB of data. As in some cases the rate offered by the telephone company to its client is lower, this means that it has to face a momentary economic loss. If the stay is extended, then the operator can see its benefit significantly reduced.
Therefore, when a person travels through Europe, they will be exempt from roaming, but if they spend more than a couple of months in one place, they must contract a card with a company of the country where they live.
