Orange offers free roaming to EUR 30 plus monthly subscribers in Romania, other countries

Telecom operator Orange has decided to remove roaming costs for its subscribers in several countries, including Romania, the company has announced. The decision will be applied to users on Orange's largest post-paid plans in France, Spain, Poland, Belgium, Romania, Slovakia and Luxembourg and implemented throughout 2014. This means that Orange's largest post-paid plans, who typically travel abroad more frequently will no longer need to think about taking out a separate roaming bundle, according to the operator. “Additional roaming charges will be removed on a range of plans starting from EUR 30 per month, depending on local market dynamics, allowing customers to roam within Europe (and beyond in certain markets) on Orange and all partner networks,”according to the company. Orange's decision comes just months before the new EU legislation on canceling roaming tariffs across the European block is due for enforcement. From July 2014, telecom companies would need to offer “roam like at home” packages that apply across the bloc, or allow the use of a separate roaming provider without changing the original SIM card. The European Commission's goal is to cancel roaming premiums altogether by 2016, so operators have started to create packages preparing for that, with a focus on data roaming, which is usually the costlier part of the roaming packages. But there is a cap to Orange's recent offer: in France, for example, Origami Play can use data for up to seven or 14 days a year, with a cap of 1 GB or 2 GB respectively, per year. Orange's recent initiative is coupled with the news that the operator will launch 4G roaming from February for customers in France traveling to the UK, Spain, Portugal and South Korea. Further to this, technical readiness to deliver 4G roaming has been achieved in a further five markets including the UK (EE), Spain, Romania, Portugal and Moldova. 4G roaming will be fully available across Orange’s European footprint by the end of 2014, including major destinations outside of Europe. Orange Romania recorded revenues of EUR 241 million in the third quarter of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 3.2 percent, while the number of customers also went up to slightly more than 10.3 million. In the first nine months of the year, the company’s revenues in Romania increased 0.7 percent, to EUR 690 million. editor@romania-insider.com