Roaming
In more technical terms, roaming refers to the ability for a cellular customer to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services, including home data services, when travelling outside the geographical coverage area of the home network, by means of using a visited network.
Device equipment and functionality, such as SIM card capability, antenna and network interfaces, and power management, determine the access possibilities.
[4] In the UK, the main network providers generally send text alerts to advise users that they will now be charged international rates so it is clear when this will apply.
UK data roaming charges abroad vary depending on the nature of the phone agreement (either pay as you go or monthly contracts).
"[5] An operator intending to provide roaming services to visitors publishes the tariffs that would be charged in their network at least sixty days prior to its implementation under normal situations.
[6] Having still found that market conditions did not justify lifting the capping of roaming within the EEA, the Commission replaced the law in 2012.
While the European Commission (EC) believed that ending roaming charges would stimulate entrepreneurship and trade, mobile operators had their doubts about the changes.
[8] On 15 June 2017, Regulation (EU) 2016/2286, nicknamed "Roam like at Home" and having been signed by the European Parliament and Commission in May of the same year came into force.
In April 2011, Singapore and Malaysia announced that they had agreed with operators to reduce voice and SMS rates for roaming between their two countries.
[10] In August 2012, Australia and New Zealand published a draft report proposing coordinated action on roaming services.
[11] This was followed by a final report in February 2013 recommending that the two countries equip their telecommunications regulators with an extended palette of regulatory remedies, when they investigate international roaming.
[12] The Australian and New Zealand prime ministers subsequently announced that they would introduce legislation to effect the recommendations of the final report.
[13] On 19 February 2020, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru voted, through the auspice of the Andean Community, to eliminate roaming fees amongst themselves.
[14] On 1 July 2021, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Kosovo abolished roaming fees as part of Mini Schengen project, allowing SIM holders on those countries to use their domestic packages on another country in the agreement without having to pay their roaming fee.
[15][16] In November 2021, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Chad and Gabon committed to bilateral agreements to lift charges and cut interconnection tariffs.
This has often taken place when a new company is assigned a mobile telephony license (such as Free Italia's 10-year national roaming deal with Wind Tre), to create a more competitive market by allowing the new entrant to offer coverage comparable to that of established operators (by requiring the existing operators to allow roaming while the new entrant has time to build up its own network), or where mobile network infrastructure has been destroyed by natural or man-made means, such as during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine where Ukrainian mobile operators had to quickly implement national roaming with each other to compensate for network infrastructure destroyed in said invasion.
Broadly speaking, international roaming is typically easiest when using the GSM standard, as it is used by over 80% of the world's mobile operators, and most devices support it.
If international roaming allows the traveler to stay connected during their trip, it can also generate significant costs for users, due to the trend of carriers pricing GSM usage internationally outrageously high if the traveler elects to not purchase an optional addon to their current phone service.
This means that a mobile signature transaction issued by an Application Provider should be able to reach the appropriate MSSP, and this should be transparent for the AP.
[23] This type refers to customers who purchase service with a mobile phone operator intending to permanently roam, or be off-network.
This becomes possible because of the increasing popularity and availability of "free roaming" service plan, where there is no cost difference between on and off network usage.
Most mobile phone operators will require the customer's living or billing address be inside their coverage area or less often inside the government issued radio frequency license of the mobile phone operator, this is usually determined by a computer estimate because it is impossible to guarantee coverage.
