53% limit phone use abroad despite roaming fee end

News • Personal business • 03.08.2018 • Delano staff

53% continued to limit their phone use by switching off data roaming, for example

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EU citizens continued to restrict mobile phone use in other EU countries one year after roaming fees were scrapped.

A Eurobarometer survey found that while six out of ten respondents were aware roaming charges ended on 15 June 2017, 53% continued to limit their phone use by switching off data roaming, for example. Awareness of the changes has also declined 9 percentage points across the EU since 2017, the report said.

“Respondents in each country except Luxembourg are now less likely to be aware than they were in 2017 that roaming changes have ceased, with the largest declines seen amongst those in Romania (-15 pp), Denmark (-14 pp) and Croatia, Lithuania and Italy (all -12 pp),” the report read.

Survey respondents in Luxembourg showed the greatest awareness of the change, with almost nine out of ten aware they would pay the same fees for mobile phone use in another EU country as they would at home. This is perhaps more related to the fact that Luxembourg residents travel abroad frequently, because of the country’s size, international demography and cross-border workforce. Indeed the report found that awareness was highest among those who travelled within the EU over the past 12 months.

Luxembourg respondents were also among those countries whose residents would buy a sim card for the EU country they visited with one in ten respondents saying they did this. The groups of people most likely to be aware about the end of roaming charges were men, respondents with high levels of education, employees and the self-employed.

The survey was conducted by phone in May 2018 with over 26,000 people of which 503 were in Luxembourg.