Andorra Telecom’s roaming crosses the border and fires the bills of some neighbors in La Seu
One of the things that annoys the Spanish tourists when they come to the Principality is having to turn off the data roaming of the telephone to avoid the invoice being fired. The country has a lot of free points ‘ wifi ‘ which connect but still has no agreement that allows users to Catalan and Spanish minds to walk the streets of Andorra without suffering the ‘roaming ‘. andorra telecom roaming
But beyond that annoyance, some neighbors in La Seu have warned that the network of Andorra Telecom crosses the Spanish – Andorran border and connects to mobile phones that are territorially in Spain. This causes the user’s telephone company to detect that they are abroad and charges an exorbitant ‘roaming’ rate. This is the case of Anna Gonzalez, to whom the telecom company claims 430 euros because her cellphone was connected to the Andorran network when she was in the Valleys of Aguilar (Alt Urgell). After spending a weekend without cell coverage in the Cuberes shelter, located in the municipality of Baix Pallars (Pallars Sobirà) and within the Boumort National Reserve, Anna was “surprised” when she found that the line she had contracted with Amena, an Orange company, did not work properly. In fact, the last day you could connect to the Internet was on October 12 and the bill that came to you a month later details a charge of 430 euros for consuming 41.54 Mb of ‘roaming’ ‘.
Andorran Telephone has confirmed that the affected cellphone was connected to its 3G via the Rabassa antenna, located in the Principality, and 25 kilometers in a straight line from the place where it was established. In fact, the bill details that the data roaming took about ten minutes. Andorran Telecom spokesman Carles Casadevall says that when they encounter such situations, the only thing they can do with affected people is to give them an explanation and apologize, as they have to complain to the company.
Casadevall states that the antennas have been analyzed and “corrective measures are taken to prevent it from recurring”. In this regard, the spokesman for Andorra Telecom said that the change of operator usually occurs at points where the company that usually provides customer service is left out of coverage, which means that, in the long run, it will connect to another one that maintains roaming agreements, despite the fact that the signal arriving at that place is very weak.
When the mobile phone is activated on networks of operators from countries outside the European Union, as in the case of Andorra, the companies with which users have formalized the contract for your mobile line are obliged to warn you when the amount of downloaded data is closer to 50 euros or the volume fixed with customers. This is indicated by the Catalan Consumer Agency, which adds that it is the user who has to confirm that he agrees to exceed this level.
Along with its own, the Regional Consumer Information Office (OCIC) of Alt Urgell has fourteen claims for billing roaming services open. County Council President Miquel Sala says they are “worried” about the increase in complaints and fear that they may grow more with the rollout of 5G technology.
Agreements to stop charging roaming in Andorra andorra telecom roaming
At present, Andorra Telecom has signed almost 300 agreements with companies around the world, so that customers can use their mobile phones in the Principality through their network. In addition, Casadevall says that fifteen operators in France, Ireland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Malta, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Austria no longer charge their customers a special data roaming rate that may occur within Andorran territory because, in addition, they wanted to be “sensitive” with the service they offer.
The Andorran company spokesman also said that although operators in Spain have not equated the prices they apply to the Principality with the gratuity policy in force within the European Union since June 2017, those with a larger number of customers have opted to bring to the market flat rates exclusively for Andorra. This fact, according to Casadevall, “is a gesture of goodwill”, although he acknowledges that this is not the same as those of those companies in the sector that have opted to eliminate the roaming that is spent in the Principality.
