Regulation (EU) 2017/920

What it is

to regulate the functioning of national wholesale roaming markets in order to abolish retail roaming surcharges by 15 June 2017. PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council. BACKGROUND: abolishing retail roaming surcharges is an essential step towards ensuring that telecom rules support the establishment and functioning of a digital single market across the Union. This target was also stressed in the Digital Single Market Strategy set out by the Commission. The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy adopted the report by Miapetra KUMPULA-NATRI (S&D, FI) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 as regards rules for wholesale roaming markets. The committee recommended that Parliament’s position adopted in first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission proposal as follows: Wholesale roaming access : the Commission proposal stated that mobile network operators may refuse requests for wholesale roaming access only on the basis of objective criteria and after obtaining authorisation from their national regulatory authority. Members suggested that the national regulatory authority concerned inform the Commission of any application for authorisation and of the objectively justified reasons therefor. The Commission shall make information concerning such applications available to the public, subject to the duty of confidentiality. Complaints : undertakings that have requested wholesale roaming access may submit complaints to the national regulatory authorities concerned. The national regulatory authorities shall accept or reject such complaints within one month of receipt, providing reasons for their decision. The national regulatory authorities shall inform the Commission of such complaints and the corresponding decisions, and the Commission shall make them available to the public. Wholesale charges for the making of regulated roaming calls : the average wholesale charge that the visited network operator may levy on the roaming provider for the provision of a regulated roaming call originating on that visited network, shall not exceed a safeguard limit of EUR 0.03 per minute as of 15 June 2017 and shall remain at EUR 0.03 until 30 June 2022 (the European Commission proposed a ceiling of EUR 0.04 per minute). Wholesale charges for regulated data roaming services : Members proposed to change the units used for data from megabytes to gigabytes (1024 MB). With effect from 15 June 2017, the average wholesale charge shall not exceed a safeguard limit of EUR 4 per gigabyte of data transmitted. The safeguard limit shall, on 1 July 2018, decrease to EUR 3 per gigabyte of data transmitted, on 1 July 2019 to EUR 2 per gigabyte of data transmitted, and on 1 July 2020, to EUR 1 per gigabyte of data transmitted. It shall remain at EUR 1 per gigabyte of data transmitted until 30 June 2022. Dispute resolution : disputes between visited network operators…

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