Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/2286Show full title

SECTION II FAIR USE POLICY

Article 3 Basic principle

1. A roaming provider shall provide regulated retail roaming services at domestic price to its roaming customers who are normally resident in or have stable links entailing a frequent and substantial presence in the Member State of that roaming provider while they are periodically travelling in the Union.

2. Any fair use policy applied by a roaming provider in order to prevent abusive or anomalous usage of regulated retail roaming services shall be subject to the conditions set out in Articles 4 and 5 and shall ensure that all such roaming customers have access to regulated retail roaming services at domestic price during such periodic travel in the Union under the same conditions as if such services were consumed domestically.

Article 4 Fair use

1. For the purposes of any fair use policy the roaming provider may request from its roaming customers to provide proof of normal residence in the Member State of the roaming provider or of other stable links with that Member State entailing a frequent and substantial presence on its territory.

2. Without prejudice to any applicable domestic volume limit, in the case of an open data bundle, the roaming customer shall be able to consume when periodically travelling in the Union a volume of data roaming retail services at the domestic retail price equivalent to at least twice the volume obtained by dividing the overall domestic retail price of that open data bundle, excluding VAT, corresponding to the entire billing period by the regulated maximum wholesale roaming charge referred to in Article 12 of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012.

In the event of bundled sale of mobile retail services with other services or terminals, the overall domestic retail price of a data bundle shall be determined, for the purposes of Article 2(2)(c) and of this paragraph, by taking into account the price applied to the separate sale of the mobile retail services component of the bundle, excluding VAT, if available, or the price for the sale of such services with the same characteristics on a stand-alone basis.

3. In the case of pre-paid tariff plans, as an alternative to the fair use policy requirement in paragraph 1, the roaming provider may limit the consumption of data roaming retail services within the Union at the domestic retail price to volumes equivalent to at least the volume obtained by dividing the overall amount, excluding VAT, of the remaining credit available and already paid by the customer to the provider, at the moment of commencing roaming, by the regulated maximum wholesale roaming charge referred to in Article 12 of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012.

4. In the context of the processing of traffic data according to Article 6 of Directive 2002/58/EC, in order to prevent abusive or anomalous usage of regulated retail roaming services provided at the applicable domestic retail price, the roaming provider may apply fair, reasonable and proportionate control mechanisms based on objective indicators related to the risk of abusive or anomalous use beyond periodic travelling in the Union.

The objective indicators may include measures to establish whether customers have prevailing domestic consumption over roaming consumption or prevailing domestic presence of the customer over presence in other Member States of the Union.

In order to ensure that roaming customers engaged in periodic travel are not subjected to unnecessary or excessive alerts pursuant to Article 5(4), roaming providers which apply such measures to establish a risk of abusive or anomalous use of roaming services shall observe such indicators of presence and consumption cumulatively and for a period of time of at least 4 months.

The roaming provider shall specify in contracts with roaming customers to which mobile retail service or services the consumption indicator relates and the minimum duration of the observation period.

Either prevailing domestic consumption or prevailing domestic presence of the roaming customer during the defined observation period shall be considered as a proof of non-abusive and non-anomalous usage of regulated retail roaming services.

For the purpose of the second, third and fifth subparagraph, any day when a roaming customer has logged on to the domestic network shall be counted as a day of domestic presence of that customer.

Other objective indicators of a risk of abusive or anomalous use of regulated retail roaming services provided at the applicable domestic retail price may only include:

(a) long inactivity of a given SIM card associated with use mostly, if not exclusively, while roaming;

(b) subscription and sequential use of multiple SIM cards by the same customer while roaming.

5. Where the roaming provider establishes, with objective and substantiated evidence, that a number of SIM cards have been the object of organised resale to persons not effectively residing in or having stable links entailing frequent and substantial presence in the Member State of that retail roaming provider in order to enable consumption of regulated retail roaming services provided at the applicable domestic retail price other than for the purpose of periodic travel, the roaming provider may take immediate proportionate measures in order to ensure compliance with all conditions of the underlying contract.

6. The roaming provider shall comply with Directives 2002/58/EC and 95/46/EC and their national implementing measures, and Regulation (EU) 2016/679 when acting pursuant to this section.

7. This Regulation does not apply to any fair use policies defined in the contractual terms of alternative roaming tariffs provided in accordance with Article 6e(3) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012.

Article 5 Transparency and supervision of fair use policies

1. When a roaming provider applies a fair use policy, it shall include in contracts with roaming customers all the terms and conditions associated with that policy, including any control mechanism applied in accordance with Article 4(4). As part of the fair use policy, the roaming provider shall put in place transparent, simple and efficient procedures to address complaints of customers relating to the application of a fair use policy. This is without prejudice to the rights of the roaming customer, pursuant to Article 17(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012, to avail of transparent, simple, fair and prompt out-of-court dispute resolution procedures established in the Member State of the roaming provider in accordance with Article 34 of Directive 2002/22/EC. Such complaint mechanism and dispute resolution procedures shall permit the roaming customer to provide evidence that it is not using the regulated roaming retail services for other purposes than periodic travel, in response to an alert in accordance with paragraph (3), first subparagraph.

2. Fair use policies in accordance with this Regulation shall be notified by the roaming provider to the national regulatory authority.

3. Where there is objective and substantiated evidence, based on the objective indicators referred to in Article 4(4), indicating a risk of abusive or anomalous use of regulated roaming retail services within the Union at the domestic retail price by a given customer, the roaming provider shall alert the customer about the detected behaviour pattern indicating such a risk before applying any surcharge pursuant to Article 6e of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012.

In cases where such risk results from non-fulfilment of both the prevailing domestic consumption and the prevailing domestic presence criteria over the defined observation period, referred to in the fifth subparagraph of Article 4(4), additional indications of risk arising from the overall non-domestic presence or usage of the roaming customer shall be taken into account for the purposes of resolving any subsequent complaint as provided in paragraph (1) or dispute resolution procedure pursuant to Article 17(2) of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012, relative to the applicability of a surcharge.

This paragraph shall apply irrespective of the provision by the roaming customer of documentary evidence of residence or other stable links entailing frequent and substantial presence in the Member State of the roaming provider pursuant to Article 4(1).

4. When alerting the roaming customer pursuant to paragraph 3, the roaming provider shall inform the customer that, in the absence of a change in the usage pattern within a period which cannot be shorter than 2 weeks, demonstrating actual domestic consumption or presence, a surcharge pursuant to Article 6e of Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 may be applied for any further use of regulated retail roaming services with the SIM card in question after the date of such alert.

5. The roaming provider shall cease to apply the surcharge as soon as the customer's usage no longer indicates a risk of abusive or anomalous use of the regulated retail roaming services based on the objective indicators referred to in Article 4(4).

6. Where a roaming provider establishes that SIM cards have been the object of organised resale to persons who neither normally reside in nor have stable links entailing frequent and substantial presence in the Member State of the retail roaming provider to enable consumption of regulated retail roaming services other than for the purpose of periodic travel outside that Member State in accordance with Article 4(3), the operator shall notify to the national regulatory authority the evidence characterising the systematic abuse in question and the measure taken to ensure compliance with all conditions of the underlying contract at the latest at the same time as such measure is taken.