There are already 29 operators throughout Europe who have included the Principality within the free-roaming zone, including the main companies in France. For this reason, the increase in data consumption has been particularly noticeable among French tourists. Find out more about Andorra data roaming below.

In total, during the first half of 2018, consumption of megabytes increased 238% compared to the same period last year, going from 29,700,000 to 100,400,000 MB. Andorra Telecom also notes that the number of foreign SIM cards that have been active in Andorra has increased by 7.7%, and those cards have increased by 56.5% for those who have used data.

Thus, foreign active cards with data consumption have gone from 27% to account for 39% of the total, data that reflects the changing habits of visitors when they are in Andorra. To all this, it must be added that every tourist has also increased their average data consumption, and has gone from 57 MB per user to 123 MB.

The general director of Andorra Telecom, Jordi Nadal, recalled that, although users of the European Union no longer pay for roaming services, the cost between operators is maintained due to the cost of resources. The Roam-like-at-Home application in the EU has also affected Andorra, as it has forced the operator to negotiate downward the price it receives for each phone call, SMS and MB consumed by other telephone companies. But Nadal has assured that they have been able to alleviate the foreseeable loss of revenue per roaming.

It should be noted that by 2012 Andorra Telecom had revenues for roaming between 20 and 25 million euros, and subsequently increased to a maximum of 50 million by 2016, due to the increase in consumption from the internet to mobile. From here, seeing that consumption would still increase more when the customer stopped paying to roam, foreign operators wanted to renegotiate the agreements, not paying for the exact customer’s consumption but a fixed price, which could be set in figures similar to what they paid historically.

29 operators stopped charging roaming charges andorra data roaming

Thus, although the 2012 forecast was that in 2018 only 5 million euros would be invoiced for this concept, finally in 2017 the figure was 30 million euros, and it is expected to close this year with a revenue of 25 million.
Nadal acknowledges that the 29 operators that have opted to stop charging roaming charges to their customers are from countries such as France, with little income, because they have few customers traveling to Andorra. The rest of the operators, such as those in Spain, are applying special rates lower than the abusive prices a few years ago, but they do not offer the service for free.
In the case of Spanish companies, not charging these fees would result in a loss of revenue, even if Andorra Telecom made a discount in the rate that applies to use the Andorran network and the Andorran operator is not willing to stop charging. andorra data roaming