On Friday 9 June, the European Body of Regulators for Electronic Communications (ORECE/BEREC) published a number of guidelines on the whole-sale roaming markets. This document follows the publication that same day of the 2017/920 regulation on wholesale markets in the EU Official Journal, preceding the scrapping of roaming costs planned for 15 June.
It should be pointed out that regulation 2015/2120 stipulates an end to surcharges invoiced by telephone operators whilst travelling in another member state as from 15 June 2017 (retail roaming). To achieve this aim, regulation 2017/920 covers the rules for scrapping roaming tariffs for the wholesale markets or prices that operators apply between themselves when using their networks during a visit by the user to another country in the EU. The 46 BEREC guidelines seek to ensure the effective application of article 3 of the latter, namely, “that mobile telephone network operators meet all reasonable demands for wholesale access to roaming services”.
The document indicates, for example, that, “the question of whether a demand is reasonable or not will still be judged on the basis of the case in point. As a general rule, however, BEREC expects that any request that does not demand the deployment of an inappropriate level of resources to be implemented and it is reasonable to forecast that the implementation costs will be recovered within a reasonable deadline, is considered as reasonable”. It also stipulates that access demands cannot be refused other than for objectively justified reasons backed up by proof in the case in point and that this refusal must be justified according to a comprehensive explanation provided in writing “a month, at the latest, after the initial reception of the demands made by the mobile network operator”.
The guidelines are available at:
http://berec.europa.eu/eng/news_and_publications/whats-new/4402-berec-adopts-guidelines-on-the-wholessale-roaming (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)