BEREC Report on the wholesale roaming market

EU Regulation 2015/2120, adopted by the European Parliament on 27 October 2015 and published in the Official Journal of 26 November 2015, included amendments to the Roaming Regulation 531/2012. These amendments oblige mobile telecommunications operators not to levy any surcharge in addition to the domestic retail price on any EU roaming customer for any regulated voice call, SMS or use of data outside the customer’s home country for periodic roaming from 15 June 2017 onwards.

This obligation depends on a legislative act being proposed by the Commission in July 2016, following a comprehensive review of national wholesale roaming markets in the EU, and to be adopted by the co-legislators by December 2016. On 26 November 2015, the European Commission (EC) began its public consultation on the review of national wholesale roaming markets, fair use policy and the sustainability mechanism referred to in Roaming Regulation 531/2012 as amended by Regulation 2015/2120.

In this context, it is relevant to assess different scenarios for a wholesale roaming market regulation to accompany the implementation of Regulation 2015/2120, taking into account data on domestic price levels, consumption patterns, existing roaming offers and travel patterns as well as a broader analysis of the workings of the wholesale roaming market independent of the costs. The analysis is mainly based on the information received from the NRAs and from the operators, to which a questionnaire was circulated in mid-September 2015.

This report is therefore intended to constitute BEREC’s response to the EC’s public consultation in respect of its review of the national wholesale roaming markets.