Most mobile operators advise against or prohibit permanent roaming, as they have to pay every minute of charges to the network operator on which their customer is roaming. This is due to the fact that they cannot pass on these additional costs to customers (“free roaming”). In more technical terms, roaming refers to a mobile subscriber`s ability to automatically make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services, including home data services, when traveling on a visited network outside the geographic area of the home network. For example, if a subscriber traveled beyond the transmission distance of their mobile phone company, their mobile phone would automatically jump on the service of another phone company if available. In the European Union, the regulation of roaming charges began on the 30th.