Mobile roaming charges slashed from today

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 1 Jul 2009 at 08:11

Making a telephone call, sending a text message or reading emails on a mobile phone from across the European Union will cost less from today.

Barry Collins reveals why the roaming rip-off is far from over here

It will now be up to 60% cheaper to send text messages while traveling in the EU or to surf the web using a 3G connection.

"All Europeans making calls or sending texts with their mobiles can experience the EU's single market without borders," says EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding. "The roaming rip-off is now coming to an end."

Networks will be allowed to charge customers a maximum of 11 euro cents (9p) per roamed text message (SMS), excluding sales tax, compared with current prices of about 28 cents (24p).

As of today, prices for making a roamed mobile call will be capped at 43 euro cents (37p) per minute versus 46 cents (39p) previously, and at 19 cents (16p), down from 22 cents (19p), for calls received abroad.

The caps will further fall to 39 cents (33p) for calls made and 15 cents (13p) for calls received while roaming from 1 July, 2010 and to 35 cents (30p) and 11 cents (9p) from 1 July, 2011.

Downloading data while roaming will cost a maximum of 1 euro (86p) per megabyte from at the wholesale level compared with about 1.68 euros (£1.43) previously.

Operators must also introduce per-second billing after 30 seconds for roamed calls made and from the first second for calls received abroad.

Until now, consumers paid up to 24% more than the time actually used making or receiving calls.

The European Commission wants to end "bill shock," when business travellers or holidaymakers return home to huge charges for checking emails or surfing the web while away, by introducing a cut-off mechanism once the bill reaches 50 euros (£43).

The GSM Association, which represents major mobile operators, says the latest measures were unnecessary and that data prices were already falling.