Affordable roaming prices in EU as Finland’s objective

With like-minded member states of The Telecommunications Council of EU, Finland participated on 2 December in a political statement which expressed lowering the wholesale price ceilings of roaming as its central objective.

The chair’s stand was successful in the vote for the wholesale price ceiling of roaming. The president proposed a progressively descending wholesale price ceiling which would start at 1,0 €c/MB next summer and descend down to 0,50 €c/MB in the summer of 2021.

Finland considered the wholesale price ceiling to be too high still and that as such it would be likely to increase the consumer prices in the membership countries. In addition, Finland did not consider the wholesale prices’ sustainability mechanism included in the proposal competent because of its complexity.

- Now Finland must try to make lower wholesale price ceilings similar to those proposed by the Parliament succeed in future negotiations of the Council and the Parliament. The voting result and statement show that the council was not unanimous in the matter. Our goal is to make unlimited phone subscription, such as those in Finland, available in more EU countries to encourage citizens and companies to make more use of digital services, commented the Minister of Transport and Communications Anne Berner on the result.

A common goal of EU is to remove the roaming costs of reasonable retail usage in the summer of 2017. Finland considers the regulation questions, that are resolved now, to affect the development of information society and EU’s internal digital market significantly.

Next, the Council and the Parliament will negotiate about their proposals. The objective is to find a compromise so that the new wholesale price regulation would become effective before 15 June 2017.

Further information:

Mr. Mikael Nyberg, Director General, +358 40 837 8794