VON Europe - Comments on EC Public Consultation on Roaming

8/7/2019 VON Europe - Comments on EC Public Consultation on Roaming

1/6

VON Europe Comments on the Commissions review

of the functioning of the Roaming Regulation

1

Comments on the Commissions review of the functioning

of the Roaming Regulation

by VON Europe, February 2011

Preliminary remarks

The Voice on the Net Coalition Europe (VON) welcomes the opportunity to comment on the

Commissions review of the functioning of the Roaming Regulation (hereafter the Consultation). In

doing so we will also refer to the Commissions Interim Report on the state of development of

roaming services within the European Union (COM(2010) 356 final) (hereafter the Report).

VON Europe considers that the many dysfunctions in place in the mobile market (see notably our

response to Q.6) would benefit from a more horizontal and structural approach than the one put in

place by the Roaming Regulation, in order to ensure that users are granted choice and can benefit

from greater competitive alternatives. However, should such a structural approach not be envisaged

by the Commission, then at the very least the Roaming Regulation should be kept in place after 30

June 2012 in order to ensure that the main objective of aligning national and roaming charges by

2015 can be achieved.

More details can be found in VONs responses below.

Detailed remarks

Question 1: To what extent do you believe that the current regulation achieved its objectives in

terms of:

(a) Contributing to the single market for roaming services?

(b) Ensuring consumer protection?

(c) Promoting competition?

Question 2: Do you consider that regulatory intervention for roaming services is needed beyond

June 2012? Please consider voice, SMS and data roaming services separately. In particular, if you

consider that the Roaming Regulation should expire in June 2012, please explain why, and describe

how you consider that the market for roaming services will evolve in the absence of regulation.

There is no evidence that the Regulation has led to a single market for roaming, and little evidence

that it has led to enhanced consumer protection, cheaper prices, or competition. Indeed, retail


2/6



2

roaming prices remain high and consumer choice, either in mobile voice roaming or perceived

alternatives, are not obvious.

VON would however suggest that regulatory efforts around roaming deserve continued attention.

We believe this is particularly important to deliver more choice and alternatives to expensive

roaming services. Indeed, VON would like to remind the Commission that cross-border VoIP has been

one of the first true examples of a translation of the concept of a single market one of the key

objectives of the European Union and Commissioner Kroes Digital Agenda into practice. The use of

the Voice over IP (VoIP) protocol can hence in theory deliver alternatives to users phoning in an

international roaming context. However, the current patchwork of regulations faced by VoIP

providers combined with the abusive behaviour of certain access operators that either block,degrade or charge a subscription fee for third-party VoIP on top of the data package already paid for

by the user creates multiple barriers to entry, hence stifling the advance of alternatives for mobile

international roaming, and this to the detriment of all European citizens.

It is the blocking, degradation and/or discrimination by network operators against a number of

Internet applications, services, and protocols such as VoIP or even more broadly peer-to-peer

occurring across Europe that broadly affects the potential of VoIP providers to deliver a true

alternative for mobile international roaming (and hence the possibility for European citizens to

benefit from it). BEREC notes for example in their response to the European Commissions

consultation on the open Internet and net neutrality in Europe (p. 3)1that blocking of VoIP in mobile

networks occurred in Austria, Croatia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and

Switzerlandand also remarks that albeit some operators in some countries allow the usage of such

VoIP services that this is provided at an extra charge. VON can therefore only (and sadly) agree

with the Commissions statement in the Consultation that a lack of (or substantial imperfections in)

roaming substitutes () means that customers have had no effective means of substituting for the

roaming service (p. 3).

This statement does not however seem to translate in a clear action point for the Commission to

remedy the observed abusive behaviour of mobile network operators, even though, in VONs

opinion, these practices breach the end-to-end connectivity principle of the Telecoms Package

1 http://erg.eu.int/doc/berec/bor_10_42.pdf
http://erg.eu.int/doc/berec/bor_10_42.pdfhttp://erg.eu.int/doc/berec/bor_10_42.pdfhttp://erg.eu.int/doc/berec/bor_10_42.pdf


3/6



3

enshrined in Article 5 of the Access Directive (2009/140/EC)2, the principles set out in Recital 28 of

the Universal Service Directive (USD) (2009/136/EC)3

as well as Recital 40 of the Roaming Regulation

(Regulation (EC) No 544/2009)4

itself. The lack of clear plan to remedy these abuses is in stark

contrast with Commissioner Kroes statements at her hearing as Commissioner-designate for the

Digital Agenda before the European Parliament that [t]he core issue is that internet providers

shouldn't be allowed to limit the access to service or content out of commercial motivation but only

in cases of security issues and spamming5. She reiterated this position in her speech at the ARCEP

Net Neutrality Conference, stating that discrimination against undesired competitors (for instance,

those providing Voice over the Internet services) should not be allowed6.

VON therefore urges the Commission to take appropriate measures to guarantee the developmentand growth of competitive alternatives to mobile international roaming in order to ensure

consumer choice. After all, the Commission itself recognises in its Report that technological

developments and/or the alternatives to roaming services, such as the availability of VoIP or WiFi,

may render the EU roaming market more competitive (p. 13). The Commission should hence, in light

of this statement and the objective set under Recital 49 of the Regulation,7

address the obstacles

faced by alternatives to mobile international roaming.

2It must be noted however that Article 5 applies to access and interconnection issues, which would not

cover many issues faced by content, service or applications providers faced with abusive behaviour by an

ISP or mobile operator.3

End-users should be able to decide what content they want to send and receive, and which services,applications, hardware and software they want to use for such purposes, without prejudice to the need to

preserve the integrity and security of networks and services. A competitive market will provide users with a

wide choice of content, applications and services. National regulatory authorities should promote users

ability to access and distribute information and to run applications and services of their choice () .4 () there should be no obstacles to the emergence of applications or technologies which can be a

substitute for, or alternative to, roaming services, such as WiFi, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and

Instant Messaging services.5 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=

20100113IPR67216&language=EN6 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/153

7 The Commission should also, in the light of technological developments, consider the availability and

quality of services which are an alternative to roaming (such as VoIP).
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=20100113IPR67216&language=ENhttp://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=20100113IPR67216&language=ENhttp://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=20100113IPR67216&language=ENhttp://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/153http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/153http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/10/153http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=20100113IPR67216&language=ENhttp://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=IM-PRESS&reference=20100113IPR67216&language=EN


4/6



4

Question 6: Do you consider that retail regulation of data roaming prices is necessary? If not, what

are the likely market developments post-June 2012?

VON considers that the Commission should also address the retail prices for data roaming services,

as the Commission remarks in the Report that the average retail prices still present a substantial

margin over the *falling+ wholesale rates (p. 13). It is undeniable that the difference between

national retail prices (which are themselves so high as to deter take-up) and international data

roaming retail prices is staggering and clearly unjustified.

Moreover, mobile international roaming is not the only dysfunction of the mobile market, generally

considered competitive in theory: lack of price transparency of mobile offers, bundling of services

that limit choice, explicit and hidden undue usage restrictions, mobile data pricing stifling demand,

etc.

VON would finally like to remark that, while the Commission expects that with increased bandwidth

and performance in mobile broadband over-the-top VoIP services (e.g. Skype or Google Talk) will

become more popular over mobile networks (p. 10), it is interesting to note that in fact VoIP traffic

represents just a trickle in todays growing broadband pipes. For most VoIP codecs, between 20 and

90 kbps upstream and downstream is sufficient8. Clearly, the constraint on popularity of VoIP over

mobile networks is not bandwidth usage, but rather the high retail prices for the use of mobile data

(including VoIP surcharges in several cases, leading to double payment) and the contractual and

technical restrictions on VoIP imposed by mobile network operators. Therefore VON urges the

Commission to add VoIP offerings to the list of examples for data roaming applications mentioned in

Recital 42 of the Regulation9.

In conclusion, VON Europe considers that the many dysfunctions in place in the mobile market

would benefit from a more horizontal and structural approach than the one put in place by the

Roaming Regulation. However, should such a structural approach not be envisaged by the

Commission, then at the very least the Roaming Regulation should be kept in place after 30 June

2012 in order to ensure that the main objective of aligning national and roaming charges by 2015 can

be achieved (p. 4).

8 Except video calling.

9 In order to facilitate customers understanding of the financial conseque nces of the use of regulated data

roaming services and to permit them to monitor and control their expenditure, the home provider should

give examples for data roaming applications, such as e-mail, picture and web-browsing, by indicating their

approximate size in terms of data usage.


5/6



5

Question 13: In the medium to long term, markets and technologies will possibly evolve to the

point where roaming services can be provided by different competing technologies. Such

developments seem to be unlikely to be sufficient to eliminate or minimize roaming problems

within 5 years. Do respondents share this view? Please explain.

Question 14: Do respondents think that the Commission should pursue measures to accelerate

these developments (e.g. to encourage the massive deployment of interconnected WiFi networks?

What other measures could be considered? What will the impact be of the transition to an 'all IP'

environment on roaming services?

VON supports the Commissions beliefexpressed in the Consultation that an uptake of WiFi enabled

smartphones can provide opportunities for increased competition for roaming services (p. 10).

However, the geographic availability of WiFi should not be overestimated, and the constraints on

using WiFi should be recognised (sometimes complex login and payment procedures that are not

consistent with making a short call and especially with receiving a call, high prices, risk of malicious

WiFi hotspots/honeypots, etc.). Also, reliance on WiFi implies that the use of VoIP, when accessing

WiFi hotspots with a mobile phone, or the pre-loading of VoIP capability on handsets, should not be

restricted by mobile operators, as has already happened in the past.10

Therefore the Commission

should ensure that consumers are in fact truly granted a choice to benefit from competitive

alternatives to roaming, as stipulated under Recital 28 of the USD. For the reasons set out above, we

are not confident that the (welcome) promotion by the Commission of the roll-out and use of WiFi

would lead to meaningful effective consumer choice/alternatives for international mobile roaming

for the foreseeable future.

The Commission also has a role to play as regards to its approach to radio spectrum. Radio spectrum

can support a multiplicity of technical solutions, which makes it an optimal tool for enabling many

advanced and innovative electronic communication and information society services. Full utilisation

of spectrum (and preferably harmonised utilisation across Europe) will therefore be critical to the

achievement of the objectives of the Digital Agenda.

VON believes for example that the introduction of more licence-exempt spectrum and spectrum

trading is the best approach to increase efficiencies in the management of spectrum, efficiencies

which in turn may enable alternatives to mobile international roaming.

10 http://gigaom.com/mobile/t-mobile-germany-blocks-iphone-skype-over-3g-too/
http://gigaom.com/mobile/t-mobile-germany-blocks-iphone-skype-over-3g-too/http://gigaom.com/mobile/t-mobile-germany-blocks-iphone-skype-over-3g-too/http://gigaom.com/mobile/t-mobile-germany-blocks-iphone-skype-over-3g-too/


6/6



6

In particular, we regard the availability of licence-exempt spectrum in the frequencies below 1 GHz as

critical to the success of any programmes for the collective use of spectrum. The propagation

characteristics in the bands below 1 GHz allow for the delivery of communications capabilities

through obstructions and over long distances, which will be invaluable for many next generation

services in inner city and rural areas where geographic obstacles prove too great for the use of other

frequencies.

In addition, VON suggests that the European Commission considers further development of policies

for collective spectrum use by making any unused portions of license-able spectrum so-called

white spaces available on a licence-exempt basis. White spaces by definition are an under-

exploited resource despite advances such as software-defined radio and smart antennas that can beused to minimise interference with services that are licensed on a primary basis.

VON believes that the switchover to digital television and the subsequent management of the digital

dividend provides a particularly opportune moment for the introduction of a harmonised policy on

spectrum management and the adoption of rules that permit the most efficient use of unused

spectrum in the allocated spectrum for TV broadcasting in particular.

***

We thank you in advance for taking consideration of these views. Feel free to contact Caroline De

Cock, Executive Director VON Europe, by phone (+ 32 (0)474 840515) or email ([email protected])

should you need further information.

*

* *

About the VON Coalition Europe

The Voice on the Net (VON) Coalition Europe was launched in December 2007 by leading Internet communications and

technology companies, on the cutting edge iBasis, Google, Microsoft, Skype and Voxbone to create an authoritative

voice for the Internet-enabled communications industry.

The VON Coalition Europe notably focuses on educating and informing policymakers in the European Union in order to

promote responsible government policies that enable innovation and the many benefits that Internet voice innovations can

deliver.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

Documents

VON Europe - Comments on EC Public Consultation on Roaming