The netherlands loses fight to lower roaming tariffs – NOS

There is in Brussels reached a preliminary deal on roaming rates that providers within Europe to each other may come to rely on. The latest amounts are all higher than where the Netherlands had used. The fear is that the higher costs incurred by providers will be passed on to customers.

From June 2017, Europeans throughout the EU without having to pay extra in overseas call, sms and surf the internet. Providers settle between themselves the costs, which vary by country. As a result, the holiday destinations more money than northern countries.

Providers like Vodafone, which almost everywhere in Europe, these costs will the company keep and have, therefore, there is likely to be little affected. But for smaller providers, that ‘mastruimte” rent from other providers and not sit anywhere, this can affect. They may have costs to pass on to their customers.

Prices

The rates start next June at 10 euros per gigabyte (GB), and then descend in five years to 5 euro. It is a compromise between the EU member states, writes Reuters. The average price in those five years comes this way at 7,30 GB

In an earlier proposal, this was 8,70 GB. With an hour of Netflix in high quality watch consumed someone to 3 GB, and that would be in 2017 30 euro cost. Find that of fourteen EU member states, including the Netherlands, too much.

Not final

They wanted today during a consultation on the subject of lowering costs. The United Kingdom and Slovenia, with the Netherlands once were, due to the compromise still agreed. As a result, the group is in the minority, and the proposal is adopted.

The plans are not yet final. The European Parliament must still bend and want the rates to go down. That probably means that the European Council, which now has spoken, then with a new proposal.

“Unfortunately, this is what we could expect,” says D66, Member of the european parliament Marietje Schaake. “You can see that the ties between member states and providers quite attaches, and therefore this type of proposal come true. We want to go much further, what concerns us is the price of 5 euro per gigabyte in 2017 to 1 euro in 2021.”