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by jahnu 3293 days ago
No. There are various limits. One of which is you have a limited amount of time you can roam for per year before you have to start paying. It's not too bad though. The real shit loophole is that they don't give you your full data allowance when roaming. It's needlessly complicated of course. Very rough idea: if you get 10gb for €10 a month you can roam for free for 2gb of that.
2 comments
giomasce 3293 days ago
BTW, the free roaming data will increase in the next years (see second question in https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...).
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jahnu 3293 days ago
Indeed, but still at prices which are well above current prices for my domestic rate. By 2022 one would imaging domestic rates will be still lower making that maximum rate much worse than it looks now. A true end to roaming would mean I can use everything I pay for exactly the same over the whole EU. Long way to go yet before we have a true single market.
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kungtotte 3293 days ago
The amount of roaming you get depends on your carrier and contract. We get up to 20 GB of roaming or your contract data cap, whichever is lowest. E.g. me and my wife can roam for 20 GB because our contract is for 24 GB, but if we had a 12 or 6 GB plan we could only get 12 or 6 respectively.
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jahnu 3293 days ago
Right. That's why I said needlessly complicated :) Takes so much effort to work everything out. They rely on this to make profits from mistakes.
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Someone 3293 days ago
That is much harder now; they now have to warn you when you reach your limit. See question 17 on https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/faq/frequently...: "Therefore, as long as your operator has not contacted you while abroad, you can roam like at home without any worries."

So, they still can charge lots to those who, getting warned, don't immediately stop using their phone.

It is complicated because this is a political compromise. Everybody knows where the EU wants to end up (the frequent use of 'may' in that answer is a nice indicator), but that means shifting income of operators around (in general, operators in popular holiday countries lose a substantial source of income), so it can't happen in a Big Bang operation.

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