As premiums for international calls, text and data while roaming within the EU are axed, operators set to lose out on billions in revenue
New EU regulations that govern charges for international calls, text and data use while in Europe will see operators lose 28 per cent in roaming revenue, according to research from Juniper Research.
The new regulations are set to come into effect in 2017 and will see annual revenues – which will be worth an estimated $52 billion by 2017 – will fall seven per cent globally. Western Europe makes up about a quarter of this, according to Juniper’s estimates.
European operators will feel the worst impact of the new regulations, though, down 28 per cent on the previous year.
Juniper also claimed roaming will see a recovery in the medium to long term as lower prices for calls and data see higher more consumers using the services while travelling.
Research author Nitin Bhas said: “Instead, operators need to encourage more usage; they will need to work with content providers and aggregators even more closely now in order to provide more innovative content services to which users will attach value.”
