Proximus makes roaming outside the European Union much more attractive and puts an end to unpleasant surprises for its traveling customers

With the vacations just around the corner and the vaccination campaign in full swing, Belgians are starting to think about traveling outside Belgium again. But those who travel outside the European Union (EU) are still nervous about using their mobile abroad. A great many non-EU travelers use their smartphones much less when traveling, mainly because they’re afraid of a nasty surprise on their bill but also because they’re not sure of the rates in force at their destination or for their type of use. According to Proximus' observations, 40% of non-EU residential travelers don’t use their mobile service at all during their stay, depending only on Wi-Fi networks to arrange activities, communicate and stay in touch with their social circle.

The time had come to act. That's why Proximus decided to adopt a brand new, more controllable and transparent approach, adapting the Belgian mobile plans to users’ needs almost everywhere in the world. This innovative pricing approach, which will become Proximus' new basic pricing, is a first in the Belgian market and will make life considerably easier for Proximus customers.

A new offer that is simpler and easier to control

As of July 1st , Proximus will allow all its mobile residential and small business customers traveling outside the EU to continue to benefit from their national price plan, in return for payment of a "Daily Roaming Pass" which is activated for 24 hours for communications to Belgium and within the visited country (surfing, texting, MMS, outgoing calls) or for any incoming call. It will be automatically activated for 24 hours as soon as the customer makes a call, starts a mobile data session or sends more than two texts or MMS messages. A new Daily Roaming Pass can be activated again after this period. Depending on the zone visited (A or B), this pass costs either EUR 5.95 or EUR 11.95 per 24 hours of mobile service use abroad. No other cost will be applied for communications within the visited country or to Belgium if consumption remains within the limits of the monthly subscription and does not exceed the legal limit of EUR 60 including VAT for mobile internet communications abroad. Moreover, a maximum of 10 Daily Roaming Passes will be charged per month. From the 11th day onwards, it will remain active at no extra cost for the rest of the month. For customers yet to activate the daily roaming pass, two free text and two free MMS messages, to Belgium and the visited country, will be available per day, so that customers can send news to their loved ones at no extra cost when they travel outside the EU.

Proximus estimates that these new roaming rates are much more advantageous than the prices currently charged by other Belgian operators for consumption outside the EU, especially for countries that are very popular with Belgians, such as Switzerland, Morocco and the United States, which are all part of zone A. This zone also covers countries such as Canada or Turkey, while zone B includes less popular destinations such as Laos, Vietnam, Senegal, Congo and Peru.

Note that there are still some exceptions to this new offer, in particular the maritime and satellite networks, as well as a small group of countries very rarely visited by Belgian travelers.

To be sure to avoid any nasty surprises, each customer will be able to consult the status of their mobile consumption abroad at any time via the MyProximus application, and will continue to receive text notifications indicating the beginning of each mobile session outside the EU, billed in 24-hour increments.

Lower rates and more volume for businesses

Of course, customers in the corporate market have not been left behind. For this segment too, Proximus is announcing a sharp drop in its roaming rates outside the EU, so that these users can stay connected anywhere in the world, without any nasty surprises on their bill.

For Enterprise customers, Proximus is significantly lowering the price of data usage outside the EU from EUR 12/MB to EUR 0.20/MB excluding VAT (except for a few countries). In practical terms, this means that these customers will now be able to use a lot more data abroad before reaching the limit of EUR 50 excluding VAT and having their data traffic blocked on their smartphone.

And that's not all, as Proximus has decided to increase the volumes included in the roaming packages for its Enterprise customers, often doubling the number of minutes, the number of text messages and the data volume included in these packages. The country zones will also be adapted: Andorra and Monaco will be added to the EU zone, while countries such as Tunisia, Taiwan or Moldova will now be among the destinations benefiting from preferential rates for Enterprise customers.