9 Amendments of Sandra PEREIRA related to 2021/0045(COD)
Amendment 45 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 19
Recital 19
(19) As Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD), provisions of the Convention are integral part of the Union legal order and binding upon the Union and its Member States. The UN CRPD requires its Parties to take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have access, on an equal basis with others, to information and communications technologies and systems. To that end, Directive (EU) 2018/1972 aims to “ensure the provision throughout the Union of good quality, affordable, publicly available services through effective competition and choice, to deal with circumstances in which the needs of end-users, including those with disabilities in order to access the services on an equal basis with others, are not satisfactorily met by the market and to lay down the necessary end-user rights.”(Article 1.2 (b)). In accordance with Article 109 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972, all end-users should have access to emergency services, free of charge, through emergency communications to the most appropriate public safety answering point (PSAP). Member States are also required to ensure that access for end-users with disabilities to emergency services is available through emergency communications and is equivalent to that enjoyed by other end- users. Importantly, the Code notes that “emergency communications are a means of communication that includes not only voice communications services, but also SMS, messaging, video or other types of communications, for example real time text, total conversation and relay services.” (recital 285, Directive (EU) 2018/1972). It is for the Member States to determine the type of emergency communications that are technically feasible to ensure roaming customers access to emergency services. In order to ensure that roaming customers have access to emergency communications under the conditions laid down in Article 109 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972, visited network operators should inform the roaming provider through the wholesale roaming agreement about what type of emergency communications are mandated under national measures in the visited Member State. In addition, wholesale roaming agreements should include information on the technical parameters for ensuring access to emergency services, including for roaming customers with disabilities, as well as for ensuring the transmission of caller location information to the most appropriate PSAP without delay after the emergency communication is set up in the visited Member State. Such information should allow the roaming provider to identify and provide the emergency communication and the transmission of caller location free of charge and without having to use any means of payment.
Amendment 49 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 20
Recital 20
(20) Certain conditions may be included in the reference offers in order to allow mobile network operators to prevent permanent roaming or anomalous or abusive use of wholesale roaming access . In particular, where the visited network operator has reasonable grounds for considering that permanent roaming by a significant share of the roaming provider’s customers or anomalous or abusive use of wholesale roaming access is taking place, it should be able to require the roaming provider to provide, in an aggregated manner and in full compliance with Union and national data protection requirements, information allowing the determination of whether a significant share of the roaming provider’s customers is in a situation of permanent roaming or whether there is anomalous or abusive use of wholesale roaming access, such as information on the share of customers with insignificant domestic consumption compared to the roaming consumption. In the event of any doubt over the interpretation of the provisions of this Regulation or any contradiction or conflict relating to personal data protection, the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation shall take precedence. Moreover, termination of wholesale roaming agreements with a view to preventing permanent roaming or anomalous or abusive use of wholesale roaming access should be effected only where less stringent measures have failed to address the situation. Such termination should be subject to prior authorisation by the national regulatory authority of the visited network operator, taking the utmost account of the opinion of BEREC where it has been consulted. Less stringent measures could consist of setting higher wholesale charges not exceeding the maximum wholesale charges provided for in this Regulation for volumes exceeding an aggregated volume specified in the agreement. Such higher wholesale charges should be set in advance, or from the moment when the visited network operator has established and informed the home network operator that, based on objective criteria, permanent roaming by a significant share of the roaming provider’s customers or anomalous or abusive use of wholesale roaming access is taking place. Less stringent measures could also consist of a commitment by the home network operator to adopt or revise the fair use policies applicable to its customers in accordance with the detailed rules adopted pursuant to Article 8 of this Regulation , or the possibility for the visited network operator to request that the wholesale roaming agreement be revised. In the interests of transparency, the national regulatory authority should make information concerning requests for authorisation to terminate wholesale roaming agreements available to the public, subject to business confidentiality.
Amendment 64 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital new(29
Recital new(29
new(29) Roaming providers should be able to apply a ‘fair use policy’ to the consumption of regulated retail roaming services provided at the applicable domestic retail price. The ‘fair use policy’ is intended to prevent abusive or anomalous in very limited circumstances. The ‘fair use policy’ should prevent fraudulent usage of regulated retail roaming services by roaming customers, such as the use of such services by roaming customers in a Member State other than that of their domestic provider for purposes other than periodic travel. Roaming providers should, in cases of force majeure caused by circumstances such as pandemics or natural catastrophes which involuntarily extend the period of temporary stay of the roaming customer in another Member State, consider extending the applicable fair use allowance for an appropriate period, upon a justified request by the roaming customer so consumers can enjoy a genuine roam-like-at-home experience. The COVID 19 crisis led to an extensive use of teleworking and streaming of universities courses and notes that many places in the European Union are not well served by local loop broadband, and the speed is insufficient. This shall be significantly strengthened, so citizens can enjoy a genuine Roam- Like-At-Home experience. Any fair use policy should enable the roaming provider’s customers to consume volumes of regulated retail roaming services at the applicable domestic retail price that are consistent with their respective tariff plans.
Amendment 68 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 34
Recital 34
(34) Where providers of Union-wide regulated roaming services make changes to their retail roaming tariffs and to accompanying roaming usage policies in order to comply with the requirements of this Regulation, such changes should not trigger for mobile customers anywill not affect or limit any consumer rights under national laws transposing Directive (EU) 2018/1972, namely, the right to withdraw from their contracts.
Amendment 70 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 36
Recital 36
(36) Roaming customers and home operators sometimes unwittingly incur large bills as a result of the lack of transparency on the numbers used for value added services across the Union and on the wholesale prices charged for value added services. Communications to certain numbers which are used for providing value added services, for example, premium-rate numbers, freephone numbers or shared cost numbers, are subject to particular pricing conditions at the national level. This Regulation should not apply to the part of the tariff that is charged for the provision of value added services but only to the tariffs for the connection to such services. Neverthelss, the RLAH principle might create an expectation for end-users that communications to such numbers while roaming should not incur any increased cost in comparison to the domestic situation. However, this is not always the case when roaming. End-users are confronted with increased costs, even when they call numbers that are free when called domestically. This could erode customers’ confidence in using their phones when roaming and could result in bill shocks, thus having a negative impact on a genuine RLAH experience. This is mainly caused, at retail level by the insufficient level of regulation and the lack of transparency on the higher charges which can be incurred because of communications to value added services numbers. Therefore measures should be introduced to protect customers and increase the transparency on the conditions for communications to value added services numbers and to ensure that customers that are roaming within the Union pay the same amount as domestic customers for value added services and ensure that costumers keep paying the same price as at home when resorting to value added services from their home country when travelling within the Union as long as they are accessible in the visiting country. To that end, roaming customers should be informed in their contract and notified and warned, upfront, in a timely, transparent, trustely and user- friendly manner and free of charge, thatif and when communications to value added services numbers in roaming can entail additional charges and the applicable cut- off limit which consumers can opt-out from. Additional charges should always be communicated to the client. Additionally the value added services and any charge should be immediately interrupted, followed by an alert, if suspicious of fraudulent calls.
Amendment 75 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 43
Recital 43
(43) In order to improve the transparency of retail prices for roaming services and to help roaming customers make decisions on the use of their mobile devices while abroad, providers of mobile communication services should supply their roaming customers with information free of charge on the roaming charges applicable to them when using roaming services in a visited Member State. Since certain customer groups might be well informed about roaming charges, rThe home operator should also inform roaming customers of any additional charges that may apply for resorting to some value-added services and the applicable cut-off limit to prevent bill- shocks. Such information should be provided as soon as the consumer enters another Member State and also when the roaming customer tries to use a value- added service. Providers of mobile communication services should also inform consumers of the use of non terrestrial networks on aircrafts and vessels and the cut-off limit that applies to protect them from bill-shocks. Such information should be provided as soon as the mobile device accesses such non- terrestrial networks. Roaming providers should provide a possibility to easily opt- out from this automatic message service without unduly subverting or impairing consumer's autonomy, decision-making, or choice. In addition, roaming customers should be provided free of charge with a text message including a link to a web page giving detailed information about the types of services (calls and SMS) that may be subject to increased costs. Moreover, providers should actively give their customers, provided that the latter are located in the Union, on request and free of charge, additional information on the per- minute, per-SMS or per-megabyte data charges (including VAT) for the making or receiving of voice calls and also for the sending and receiving of SMS, MMS and other data communication services in the visited Member State.
Amendment 194 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 16 – paragraph 1
Article 16 – paragraph 1
Roaming providers shall ensure that their roaming customers are kept adequately informed on the means of access to emergency services in the visited Member State and shall ensure that the access including for persons with disabilities to emergency services is equivalent to that enjoyed by other users.
Amendment 205 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 18 – paragraph 7 a (new)
Article 18 – paragraph 7 a (new)
7 a. Roaming providers shall ensure that all information referred to in Articles 9, 14, 15,16,17 and 18 which is provided to customers, is accessible for persons with disabilities in accordance with requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act), the information does not exceed a level of complexity superior to level B1 (intermediate) of the Council of Europe's Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, as well as is provided in easy-to-read format.
Amendment 215 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point a a (new)
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point a a (new)
(a a) Effectiveness of this regulation on ensuring equal access to electronic communications by persons with disabilities when travelling within the EU/EEA.