The National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has just published the ‘ Report on the international roaming service in the EU ‘. In it, follow-up of the community regulation regarding international roaming services (or roaming) in recent years, as well as the evaluation of its impact on the market. spain roaming prices

The report analyzes the changes occurring in the sector between September 2014 and March 2018. It must be remembered that on June 15, 2017 Europe said goodbye to roaming (with the approval of the Roam-like At Home methodology, RLAH) after a long process of negotiation between the member countries that began in 2007 (with a calendar of price reduction).

Since June 2017, users pay for a voice call, a message or data transmission regardless of whether the communication is made from their country of residence or from any other Member State. That is, the providers of telecommunications services must bill their subscribers for roaming services the same prices that would invoice them for demanding those services in the country of origin.

The analysis of the CNMC has shown that, as regards both wholesale services and retail or final services, mobile operators operating in the Spanish market have offered international roaming services in accordance with the established prices by the different community regulations.

As we said at the beginning, during that time, the regulation of the prices of final or retail services, provided to our own customers who are abroad, has resulted in a 95% decrease in the average price of voice services. The price per minute for calls made from EU countries has gone from 85 cents per minute to 3.9 cents in 2018. On the other hand, the received calls have even become a free service:

In terms of access to and use of data, during these four years prices have fallen by 98.1%. Specifically, the price per GB offered by Spanish operators has decreased from € 200 in 2014 to € 4.1 in 2018. In parallel consumption has increased exponentially:

It should be noted that the end of roaming, in June 2017, did not cause significant drops in the prices of messaging (SMS). This is due to the fact that the price of sending an SMS within the national market (6.31 cents) was higher than the previously applied Eurotariff (6 cents) from a Community country.

Within the wholesale market, which includes the mobile services provided by an operator to another foreign operator when their customers access such services from a foreign country in which their national operator does not have their own network, access to the data is the service that generates greater volume of income, taking into account the volume of turnover, with a trend that grows gradually since 2014. spain roaming prices