Almost three quarters of telecoms professionals believe that the impending EU roaming legislation will result in higher customer satisfaction for subscribers. However, the majority believe that this will come at the expense of operator revenue, according to data from the Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2013.

In May last year, Members of the European Parliament and representatives of the Council and the European Commission introduced rules that will lower roaming rates in the EU and see the creation of an EU-wide roaming market. As a result, from 1 July 2014, operators will have to allow customers to buy roaming services separately from alternative providers. Roaming prices will be lowered into line with domestic prices by 2015.

While 73.4 per cent of respondents to the Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey believe that the legislation will improve customer satisfaction, 55.1 per cent also expect that it will further erode prices of retail roaming. Furthermore, less than half (44 per cent) of respondents have faith that there will be an overall growth in roaming revenue as a result.

57.1 per cent of respondents also expect new, specialist roaming providers to enter the market following the introduction of the regulation, with firms such as Apple and Google speculated to be interested in offering such services.

The survey also found that the majority (60.5 per cent) of telecoms professionals believes that the best channel for the sale of roaming upgrade packages and day passes will be through on-device apps. Over three quarters (76.7 per cent) reckon that facilitating real-time visibility of spend for the customer will be a successful or very successful strategy in encouraging take-up of roaming services.

“This survey clearly highlights the top three strategies for operators to increase data roaming usage and subsequent revenue as service passes  (e.g. 30MB for a day), real-time visibility, and on-device sales/purchase,” said Corine Suscens, senior marketing manager, EMEA at Openet. “By combining them, operators will not only offer customers the level of control that they crave and which has been a barrier to data roaming usage, but also maximise revenue potential by making purchasing very easy and convenient.”

The Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2013, which will be published on February 18th, collected data from almost 2,000 industry respondents, including 600 operator employees from 260 different operators worldwide.

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