EXPATS in Spain visiting their family and friends will not have to dread their mobile phone bill arriving when they return – roaming charges will be scrapped from June 15 between all 28 European Union member States and in the European Economic Area (EEA) nations of Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland.
The long-awaited 'Roam Like At Home' programme means whatever tariff a mobile user is on in their country of residence applies identically if they travel to another EU or EEA member State – so tourists from the UK and Ireland, for example, will incur the same costs using their phones on holiday in Spain as they would any other time of the year.
Whether this will continue after Brexit in April 2019 is open to conjecture, and is one of hundreds of unanswered questions about Britain's leaving the EU.
Some mobile operators have already dropped roaming charges ahead of the June 15 deadline, and all of them are required to tell customers once they have done so and explain how it works.
This said, according to Computer Hoy, some telecommunications companies plan to raise their year-round at-home tariffs to compensate for the loss of income they make through roaming fees.
Movístar has already announced a price hike, and Vodafone is expected to do likewise.
Orange admitted back in April that it would lose profits once roaming charges were axed, but refused to say whether or not it planned to up its fees.
All packages on contract phones will remain the same between EU member States, meaning if a customer has a tariff allowing unlimited calls and text messages in Spain, this will apply in 30 other countries.
Where the tariff places a cap on data, operators are obliged to tell customers how this will work after June 15.
Some companies may apply new cost plans for customers who regularly 'roam', but the maximum which can be charged outside the user's home country and within the EEA is 3.2 cents, and one cent for text messages.
The limit for data will drop from €50 per gigabyte (GB) to just €7.70 from June 15 and continue to reduce progressively in line with increasing data use and over time, falling to €2.50 by the year 2020.
To prevent unfair competition, however, 'Roam Like At Home' is for exceptions, not permanent residence or long-term visits: it does not allow a customer to take out a mobile phone package in a country he or she is not resident in just to be able to benefit from cheaper tariffs than those available at home.
This means a person living in Spain year-round who buys a phone and signs a contract for a tariff in the UK because it is cheaper than any he or she could find at home on Spanish soil would not be able to continue paying the same rate as would be charged to a UK resident on the same tariff, and some roaming costs would apply as a deterrent.
Exactly what restrictions will be placed on roaming time per year or per month will be decided by individual companies.
Roaming policies for unlimited-data contracts and for pay-as-you-go top-up cards will also have to be worked out by mobile operators themselves.
Even if the 'Roam Like At Home' ceases to apply in Britain post-Brexit, however, it still means Brits living in Spain will carry on benefiting from it if they travel to another part of Europe on holiday, such as a weekend break in Paris or Rome.
