PHONE users in Fermanagh will benefit significantly more than those in other areas when mobile roaming charges are scrapped in 2017.
Last week members of the European Parliament voted through new rules that will see the end of increased costs when travelling to other countries within the EU. While for many Europeans this will simply mean cheaper phone calls while on holiday, for most of Fermanagh’s border residents it will make day-to-day phone use much simpler and more cost effective.
Roaming charges, which are added by mobile operators for calls, texts and Internet use, will be abolished from June 15, 2017. An interim cap on the charges will take effect from April 30 next year, which will limit operators to only a minimal extra charge of up to 3p per minute for calls, 1p extra for texts, and 3p more per MB of data.
Cllr Brian McCaffery, who lives in Roslea, welcomed the news of the roaming ban but asked why it wasn’t coming sooner. “Roaming charges are the bane of all those living around the border. It’s virutally impossible to escape them whether you’re on the northern side or the southern side.
“We’ve been hearing rumours that they were going to abolish them going back a couple of years now, but nothing ever came of it. I wonder now why they’re keeping them until 2017, when they are such a rip off.”
Cllr McCaffery, who pays extra for a ‘bolt on’ for southern calls on his northern network contrac, added: “In Roslea it’s predominantley southern phones people use. It’s very easy to switch to roaming without realising it too, unless you physically look at your phone before using it and we all know most calls are made on the spur of the moment.”
Declan Devlin, owner of 02 Enniskillen, said the new roaming rules will be “really, really good” for Fermanagh mobile users. “From a cross-border point of view it will be great,” he said. “Places like Fermanagh and other border areas are where the roaming charges affect the most people, so people here are going to benefit more from this than those in a lot of other places.”
Mr Devlin said currently those living close to the border often found their phones automatically logging on to a southern network, meaning they are charged roaming rates, unless they took measures to prevent their phones from doing so. “Quite often people’s phones do switch to a network across the border, so we always tell people to lock their phone,” he said.
“Phone networks in the south will be trying to make sure their customers down south are properly covered right up to the border with Fermanagh, there’s no wall that stops the signal. It’s the same the other way around. These new rules will really help customers in that way, there’ll be no more accidental roaming.”
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