Telecoms in Croatia Ready for New Roaming Rules

The three strongest telecommunications companies in Croatia are ready to implement the new EU obligations and roaming rules, but they believe it will negatively impact their revenues as well as the revenues of the state budget.

These are new rules and obligations for operators from the EU roaming regulation, which will come into effect on April 30 of this year, under which the prices of communication services via mobile phones in the EU/EEA area (EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway) will be determined based on the prices of domestic services in each country, increased by roaming charges.

According to the explanation from the Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Activities (HAKOM), this means that roaming prices will depend on the national tariff chosen by each user and will be increased by roaming charges within the EU set by their domestic operator. For example, Croatian users roaming will pay for services according to the tariff they have contracted with their operator.

In response to Hina’s inquiry about the implementation of the new rules, Hrvatski Telekom (HT) emphasized that they are already offering users roaming options that allow them to use services in the EU and in more than 80 countries worldwide at significantly lower rates, and that they are conducting activities related to the new roaming regulations to enable users to provide roaming services more favorably in the EU/EEA countries.

They add that the new roaming prices in the EU/EEA area will be aligned with the regulation of the European Parliament and Council, and will be based on the existing user tariff, as the sum of the national price of services to other mobile networks and additional roaming charges of 0.47 HRK/min for outgoing calls, 0.10 HRK/min for incoming calls, 0.19 HRK for SMS, and 0.47 HRK for 1MB of data traffic and for MMS.

“The sum of the national price, services to other mobile networks, and additional roaming charges can amount to a maximum of 1.81 HRK/min for outgoing calls, 0.57 HRK for SMS, and 1.90 HRK for 1 MB of data traffic and for MMS messages,” HT stated.

From the second-largest operator, Vipnet, they say that they have made all adjustments for the timely start of the new obligations, under which they will calculate roaming service prices more favorably within the EU/EEA zone.

“For users of basic roaming price lists, the price in EEA roaming will be equal to the price of calls, SMS, and MMS messages to other mobile networks and MB in the domestic tariff, increased by the additional charge prescribed by the EU roaming regulation of 0.47 HRK for outgoing minutes, MMS, and MB, 0.19 HRK for SMS, and 0.10 HRK/min for incoming calls,” they say from Vipnet, which has already offered more benefits for travel worldwide since April 1 of this year, with an average price lower than the additional charge prescribed by the EU roaming regulation.

Negative Impact on Revenues

However, Vipnet also believes that the introduction of the new roaming regulation in the EU will negatively impact the telecommunications industry in financial terms, as well as the overall value of the Croatian electronic communications market, the revenue side of the state budget, and the preservation of the level of investment cycles.

“Croatia is among the EU member states oriented towards tourism, which have a pronounced imbalance between a smaller number of their own citizens going abroad and a large number of foreign tourists staying in Croatia while roaming. Therefore, the positive effects will primarily be felt by users from EU member states who come to Croatia in large numbers, and this will be significantly greater than the positive effects for the smaller number of domestic service users who will use them while roaming/abroad,” they estimate from Vipnet.

Tele2 Croatia also stated that they will fully adapt to the new regulations and that they will announce the prices of EU roaming services for end users by the end of this week.

“The new regulation will be more suitable for those EU countries that emit more roaming users compared to those that receive them due to the fact that tourist countries like Croatia need to invest more in networks and network capacities. Therefore, it is essential and necessary to define balanced wholesale prices and a fair usage policy before the complete abolition of retail additional charges for roaming planned for mid-2017, as this could significantly negatively affect the business results and the quality of services of all mobile operators in Croatia,” conclude Tele2 Croatia.