EU consumer group slams roaming deal

(ANSA) - Brussels, June 30 - European consumer organisation BEUC reacted critically to Tuesday's deal to scrap mobile roaming charges across all EU member states from June 2017, saying the "devil was in the detail".
    "The abolition of retail roaming prices by 2017 is dependent on a wholesale market review being completed, which promises to be a tough task," BEUC director-general Monique Goyens said. "We cannot call it the end of roaming when there are in-built exceptions to allow providers to charge consumers when they go abroad if they fear it's too costly. It is critical that the EU and national governments observe the deadline and finally ban roaming," she continued. Likewise, Goyens suggested that new stricter rules agreed by the European Parliament and Council to guarantee net neutrality didn't go far enough. "We applaud the new onus on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to treat traffic equally, but safeguards against the impact of 'specialised services' are not strong enough," she said. She was also critical of the negotiators' decision "not to tackle commercially driven discriminations such as 'zero rating', where operators exempt content from data allowances and thereby shepherd users away from competitors' content". "Such exemptions enable the largest telecoms operators and content providers to continue to shape the market to the detriment of consumer choice. Such increasingly common practices must be addressed," Goyens said.
    Tuesday's long-sought deal involves an reduction in roaming charges from April 30, 2016, to be followed by a total ban the following year.