10 Amendments of Seán KELLY related to 2021/0045(COD)
Amendment 50 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 21
Recital 21
(21) In order to allow for the development of more efficient, integrated and competitive markets for roaming services, when negotiating wholesale roaming access for the purpose of providing retail roaming services, operators should be given the possibility to negotiate innovative wholesale pricing schemes which are not directly linked to volumes actually consumed, such as flat payments, upfront commitments or capacity-based contracts, or pricing schemes that reflect variations of demand across the year. Machine-to-machine communications, referred to in recital 249 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972, are not excluded from the scope of this Regulation and the relevant wholesale roaming access obligations. However, agreements on permanent roaming are subject to commercial negotiations and can be agreed by two roaming partners in the wholesale roaming contract. In order to allow the development of more efficient and competitive markets for machine-to-machine communications, it is expected that operators will increasingly respond to and accept all reasonable requests for roaming agreements on reasonable terms and explicitly allowing permanent roaming for machine-to-machine. They should be able to establish flexible roaming agreements enabling wholesale roaming services and to apply tariff schemes which are not based on the volume of consumed data but on alternative schemes, for example on the number of connected machines per month. In that context, in the event of a cross- border dispute, the parties involved should have recourse to the dispute resolution procedure laid down in Article 27 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972. The negotiating parties should have the option of agreeing not to apply maximum regulated wholesale roaming charges for the duration of wholesale roaming agreements. That would exclude the possibility for either party to subsequently request the application of volume based maximum wholesale charges to actual consumption, as set out in this Regulation . This should be without prejudice to obligations as regards the provision of regulated retail roaming services . Furthermore, the Commission Report takes note of the very recent development of new ways of trading wholesale roaming traffic, such as online trading platforms, that have the potential to facilitate the negotiation process between operators. The use of similar instruments could contribute to enhancing competition in the wholesale roaming market and drive further down actual wholesale rates charged. To encourage online trading platforms, roaming providers should have an obligation to make roaming traffic available through such platforms but no obligation to trade traffic. This preserves the commercial interests of roaming providers while allowing all roaming providers and MVNOs to access one-way trading and avoid traffic balancing.
Amendment 62 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 28
Recital 28
(28) Roaming customers should, to the greatest extent possible, be able to use the retail services that they subscribe to and benefit from the same level of quality of service as at home, when roaming in the Union. To that end, roaming providers should take the necessary measures to ensure that regulated retail roaming services are provided under the same conditions as if such services were consumed domestically. In particular, the same quality of service should be offered to customers when roaming, if technically feasible.
Amendment 89 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 59
Recital 59
(59) It is necessary to monitor and to review regularly the functioning of wholesale roaming markets and their interrelationship with the retail roaming markets, taking into account competitive and technological developments and traffic flows. The Commission should submit twobiennial reports to the European Parliament and to the Council. In its biennial reports, the Commission should, in particular, assess whether RLAH has any impact on the evolution of tariff plans available on the retail markets. That should include, on the one hand, an assessment of any emergence of tariff plans that include only domestic services and that exclude retail roaming services altogether, thus undermining the very objective of RLAH and, on the other, an assessment of any reduction in the availability of flat-rate tariff plans, which could also represent a loss for consumers and undermine the objectives of the digital single market. The Commission’s reports should, in particular, analyse the extent to which exceptional retail roaming surcharges have been authorised by national regulatory authorities, the ability of home network operators to sustain their domestic charging models and the ability of visited network operators to recover the efficiently incurred costs of providing regulated wholesale roaming services. In addition, the Commission’s reports should assess how, at wholesale level, access to the different network technologies and generations is ensured; the level of usage of trading platforms and similar instruments to trade traffic at wholesale level; the evolution of the machine-to- machine roaming; the persisting problems at retail level in relation to value added services and the application of the measures on emergency communications . Furthermore the Commission's reports should assess what impact the roll-out and implementation of new network technologies (e.g.5G) as well as the COVID-19-pandemic have on the roaming market. In order to enable such reporting with a view to assessing how the roaming markets adapt to RLAH rules, sufficient data should be gathered on the functioning of those markets after the implementation of those rules. The Commission shall continuously work on obtaining new data on the roaming market and making the data publicly available.
Amendment 92 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 59
Recital 59
(59) It is necessary to monitor and to review regularly the functioning of wholesale roaming markets and their interrelationship with the retail roaming markets, taking into account competitive and technological developments and traffic flows. The Commission should submit two reports to the European Parliament and to the Council. In its biennial reports, the Commission should, in particular, assess whether RLAH has any impact on the evolution of tariff plans available on the retail markets. That should include, on the one hand, an assessment of any emergence of tariff plans that include only domestic services and that exclude retail roaming services altogether, thus undermining the very objective of RLAH and, on the other, an assessment of any reduction in the availability of flat- rate tariff plans, which could also represent a loss for consumers and undermine the objectives of the digital single market. The Commission’s reports should, in particular, analyse the extent to which exceptional retail roaming surcharges have been authorised by national regulatory authorities, the ability of home network operators to sustain their domestic charging models and the ability of visited network operators to recover the efficiently incurred costs of providing regulated wholesale roaming services. In addition, the Commission’s reports should assess how, at wholesale level, access to the different network technologies and generations is ensured; the level of usage of trading platforms and similar instruments to trade traffic at wholesale level and the resultant wholesale prices; the evolution of the machine-to- machine roaming; the persisting problems at retail level in relation to value added services and the application of the measures on emergency communications . In order to enable such reporting with a view to assessing how the roaming markets adapt to RLAH rules, sufficient data should be gathered on the functioning of those markets after the implementation of those rules.
Amendment 107 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 2 a (new)
Article 2 – paragraph 2 a (new)
2 a. "online trading platform" means an electronic marketplace where roaming providers can agree wholesale tariffs for roaming services in future time periods. Key characteristics of an online trading platform are that only one-way trading of capacity and the anonymity of the participants on the exchange are in place.
Amendment 123 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 3 – paragraph 6 a (new)
Article 3 – paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Roaming providers shall ensure that they have the ability to trade wholesale roaming traffic through an online trading platform when this regulation enters into force. In the calendar year 2023 and for each year thereafter, wholesale roaming users shall make available not less than 25% of their roaming requirements in the previous year by volume in the EEA over the exchange. The calculation of roaming requirements may exclude roaming capacity traded between members of the same company group and roaming capacity already contracted before this regulation enters into force.
Amendment 148 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 8 – paragraph 1
Article 8 – paragraph 1
1. IBy 31 December 2022, in order to ensure consistent application of Articles 6 and 7, the Commission shall, after having consulted BEREC, adopt and periodically review in the light of market developments implementing acts laying down detailed rules on the application of fair use policy and on the methodology for assessing the sustainability of the provision of retail roaming services at domestic prices and on the application to be submitted by a roaming provider for the purposes of that assessment. Those implementing acts shall be adopted in accordance with the examination procedure referred to in Article 4(2).
Amendment 220 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point d
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point d
(d) the extent to which the implementation of the structural measures provided for in Article 3 , (6 a)in particular, and Article 3 in general on the basis of the information provided by the national regulatory authorities, of the procedure for prior authorisation laid down in Article 3(6) and Article 3(6 a), has produced results in the development of competition in the internal market for regulated roaming services;
Amendment 223 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point i a (new)
Article 21 – paragraph new1 – subparagraph 1 – point i a (new)
(i a) the effectiveness of the quality of service obligations introduced in this Regulation and to which extent customers are properly informed and can benefit from a genuine RLAH experience;
Amendment 249 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 26 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Article 26 – paragraph 1 a (new)
This Regulation shall apply from the date of its entry into force. However, the second subparagraph of Article 14(1) and the second paragraph of Article 16 shall apply from 1 January 2023 insofar as those provisions are related to the establishment of the database referred to in Article 17.