The European Parliament has voted to ban roaming charges – extra costs from using your phone in another country – from June 2017, with an interim cap coming into force next year.
But that decision will have no effect here – and has the potential to drive up the cost of roaming for Channel Islands residents.
The EU ruling means that phone companies within the EU won’t be able to charge each other extra fees when their customers hop from their own network at home to another network in another country. Because that ruling won’t apply to Channel Islands phone companies, they will still get inflated charges from other European operators, which they will continue to pass on to customers.
That leaves phone operators across the EU faced with losing revenue from roaming, and no incentive to drop roaming charges for phone users from outside the EU – in fact, they could end up increasing charges to make up some of the lost cash.
Sure has released a statement saying that they’re bringing down the costs of roaming, but that the EU decision won’t take effect here. They say that data charges in the EU have dropped from £5 per MB to 50 pence already this year.
JT say that because Jersey isn’t part of the EU, neither they nor their customers will benefit directly from the ruling.
Anne King, the Executive Officer of the Jersey Consumer Council, said that Islanders were entitled to know why the rest of Europe could have cheaper roaming rates than Jersey.
She said: “Why can’t the local telcos adopt this legislation? What’s preventing them?
“We are highly concerned that this is really isolating the Channel Islands from both our own residents travelling as well as people coming to the Island, because businesses, friends and relatives visiting Jersey will not be able to benefit from the EU data roaming changes when they come here.”