Member states support the new wholesale roaming market regulation. Meeting up on 8 February, the Committee of Permanent Representatives to the EU (Coreper) backed the compromise negotiated last week on wholesale prices (the maximum prices operators can apply between themselves when using their respective networks) (see EUROPE 11716).
The compromise was reached in the evening of 31 January by the negotiating team. It will involve capping communication prices from another member state. A call cannot be invoiced to an operator that is more than €0.032 a minute and the price of a text message cannot be more than €0.01. Downloading data from abroad will follow a digressive price band: €7.70 per gigabyte between 15 June and 31 December 2017; €6.00 in 2018; €4.50 in 2019; €3.50 in 2020; €3.00 in 2021 and €2.50 in 2022. Under the terms of the agreement, the Commission is also in charge of examining the situation every two years and putting forward, if needs be, new caps.
These new rules on wholesale prices complete those already introduced for retail and will ultimately lead to the end of roaming prices for European users by 15 June 2017. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)