For the time being, KPN will withhold UK roaming charges

The transition period will end on January 1, 2021: European legislation previously applied will not be applied to the British people from that moment on. This legislation covers the European Union’s “home roaming” legislation, which has abolished roaming charges. KPN says it will not charge roaming fees for customers visiting the UK at this time.

Walk around like home

2017 was a “magical” year for Europeans visiting other European countries: for the first time, no charges were charged for using mobile data or using call minutes and text messages from telecom subscriptions. The agreement, which applied to all European telecom service providers as of June 2017, called “Roam like at home”, is invalid in the United Kingdom as of January 1. At this point, the alleged transition period ends.

In principle, the UK left the European Union on January 1, 2020: Brexit began in 2018. In order to buy time for drafting a trade agreement, it was decided to start a transition period. Legislation, such as roaming charges for telecom service providers, remained in effect during this period. Since the transition period expires on January 1, 2021, providers can charge different roaming charges to their customers: KPN says it will not do so “for now”.

There are no additional costs

This means that using your UK mobile phone packages will still be free for KPN customers for now. “Nothing will change for our customers at the moment.” A KPN spokesperson said, “We will continue to implement ‘Roam Like (at) Home’ in the UK, just as we do in the European Union as well.” If you use mobile data, call minutes or messages Scripts in the UK after 1 January, there will be no costs.

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KPN is not the first European provider to decide to keep Roam legislation like at home for customers traveling to the UK. In Belgium, it was also decided not to pay any (additional) costs. UK service providers have also been obligated to not charge their customers traveling to Europe, so they adhere to Roam-like legislation at home.

Andere providers

KPN says it will adhere to existing terms for now, in part because the agreements will run through January 1 next year. Other telecom providers are silent: It is not known if they are also keeping Roam as they are at home, or whether they will have to come up with a new arrangement in cooperation with British service providers. Reverse NU.nl T-Mobile and VodafoneZiggo said they are investigating “the consequences” for their customers.

It is important to realize that it is still possible for KPN to decide to impose the costs at a later time, although it is also possible for the UK and the European Union to reach an agreement to comply with Roam as it is at home. Are you often in the UK? How would you feel if you had to pay roaming charges again? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article.

Sophie Baker

"Award-winning music trailblazer. Gamer. Lifelong alcohol enthusiast. Thinker. Passionate analyst."

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