Free roaming has been extended for Ukrainians in EU countries. But…

Ukrainian operators raise prices and tariffs

Meanwhile, Ukrainian mobile operators continue to send “letters of happiness” to users like this: “Vodafone reminds: in 2 days we will activate the service package in your tariff and remove its cost – 145 UAH. Abroad, we offer to activate the “Affordable roaming” service for only 50 UAH (valid in more than 30 countries, subject to the current package of services in the tariff). You will get 10 GB, 100 min. zn.ua.

According to the Ukrainian edition, earlier the same operator provided 300 minutes of roaming free of charge in the same service package. That is, despite the renewal of the agreement between domestic and foreign mobile operators announced by the Cabinet of Ministers, the specific package of free minutes has halved.

Despite the fact that you will also have to pay extra for it – today it is 50 UAH (about a third of the package cost in Ukraine). In fact, the previously announced “free” roaming now costs a Ukrainian abroad the cost (minimum UAH 145) of a package in Ukraine (he still cannot use it while abroad) plus UAH 50 surcharge. And for those who want to have roaming without additional payment, new packages are provided, of course, of a higher cost …

And we’re not talking about exceptions. Because, for example, in the old tariffs of the Kyivstar operator, special conditions in 27 countries also ceased to operate. To use “roaming like at home”, you will also have to switch to new, more expensive tariffs of this operator.

Favorable terms are over

“A joint statement is memorandum (like the infamous Budapest one) about intentions to support the provision of affordable telecom services to Ukrainian refugees in Europe. There are no clear conditions or tariffs in the joint statement. They are provided for by bilateral agreements between Ukrainian and European mobile operators,” says Oleksandr Galushko, Head of the Additional Services and Operator Relations Department at Kyivstar. According to him, the tariffs currently in effect between Kyivstar and partners in Europe are approaching those provided by European operators within the common roaming zone. The company expects that they will operate at least until the end of the year.

“The conditions that Ukrainian operators offer to Ukrainians in Europe depend precisely on bilateral agreements with European providers,” says the Kyivstar manager. — In 2022, we had preferential terms, sometimes more favorable than the average tariffs in the general roaming area. Thanks to this, over the past year we have been offering our customers a full range of services in tariffs, including those with a large amount of gigabytes.”

But since 2023, European partners have been offering commercial terms of cooperation that are closer to the tariffs of the common EU roaming area. For example, the marginal price of 1 gigabyte of Internet this year in the EU may be 1.8 euros.

“What does it mean? At a tariff cost of UAH 175, or approximately 4.4 euros, Kyivstar can offer its subscribers in EU roaming up to 2.5 GB of traffic. These are the conditions that apply in the “LOVE UA to the maximum” tariff. This is a standard European practice, if you look at the tariffs of European operators,” says Alexander Galushko. At the same time, according to him, today the inter-operator tariffs and the terms of the “Roaming like at home” service continue to be much more favorable than the terms of roaming until February 24, 2022.

Partners revised rates

“After a full-scale invasion, we provided our subscribers with the opportunity to use mobile communications in roaming without additional fees, paying only their Ukrainian tariffs. It was a temporary solution, which involved the rejection of income both on our part and on the part of our foreign partners in order for our citizens to stay in touch far from their homes, – indicate in Vodafone Ukraine. “So the signing of the statement confirmed our agreements reached with the operators. It was a temporary solution, vital at a critical moment.”

The company notes that the preferential terms provided by roaming partners were valid until the end of 2022. For 2023, foreign operators have revised their rates for Ukrainian subscribers upwards. Therefore, the new statement was signed by the operators already taking into account these changes.

In most tariffs, affordable roaming is further provided free of charge, as a gift, subject to an activated service package for prepaid subscribers and a paid bill for contract and business subscribers, for some tariffs the service is provided for a moderate fee of UAH 50.

The lifecell operator also confirmed that since the beginning of the war, many partners have supported Ukrainian operators. Thanks to this support, they continue to provide special roaming conditions for our subscribers. In 2023, lifecell extended the term of the “Gigabytes Without Borders” promotion, which is valid in 32 countries. As part of this promotion, tariff gigabytes of the Ukrainian service package can be used in roaming. In tariffs with unlimited Internet, the operator charges a certain amount for use abroad.

Real roaming

The validity period of the recently signed joint statement of mobile operators is six months. After the expiration of this period, businessmen will again negotiate among themselves. We have no doubt that they will once again agree. There are doubts only about the amount that foreign owners of Ukrainian SIM-cards will have to pay extra. And also in terms of the volume of services in roaming.

It is absolutely clear that in order for roaming for Ukrainians to really be at home, Ukraine needs to become a member of the EU, or that the European Commission makes such a decision ahead of schedule in the field of digitalization and communications. We hope that the second of these events will occur in 2023. Moreover, in Kiev in early February, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for the digitalization of Europe, Margrethe Vestager, said that the EU was ready to approve the updated addendum XVII-3 to the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. It sets out the rules applicable to telecommunications services. And it will be possible in the shortest possible time to switch to the regime of the internal market in the sector of electronic communications with the EU.

That’s when we get real free roaming with Europe on an ongoing basis. With corresponding European quality. Until then…