New EU Regulation Makes Roaming Cheaper

The European Parliament voted in favour of introducing price caps for mobile phone roaming charges across Europe today.

The charges will be dramatically reduced from July and lowered even further in 2014. New legislation also gives customers the right to choose a different operator for roaming while abroad. As an additional protective measure, operators will also be required to send a warning when the bill for data use approaches €50.

Citizen organisation Europeans for Fair Roaming has welcomed the decision, which it fought for during the last two years.

The wicked witch is dead

According to the new EU law, from July prices for roaming will be lowered to €0.29 per minute for calls, €0.09 per text and €0.70 per MB of data usage.

Much of the credit for the game-changing price caps should be taken by Europeans for Fair Roaming. The campaign against overinflated charges that started on Facebook managed to unite more than 150,000 EU citizens, 18 associations and 14 members of the European Parliament (including three from the UK).

Speaking after the vote in the European Parliament in Brussels today, the coordinator of the FairRoaming.org campaign, Bengt Beier, stated: “I am very happy about the outcome of today’s vote. While the EU could have slashed roaming prices even more than it did, I can safely say that we achieved 80 percent of what we wanted.”

“Prices for roaming will be lowered by more than half. Consumers will have a choice of operators when going abroad. Protection of users will be improved. But we call on the EU to keep up its work and bring down the prices for all international and roaming calls.”

“Today’s vote in the European Parliament could see subscribers throughout Europe benefitting from cheaper prices when using their mobile abroad, but there’s still some way to go,” added John Assiter, spokesman for GOSIM.com, an international network provider.

“These rules will only apply to EU citizens roaming within Europe, so if you’re travelling further afield you could still be stung with inflated roaming charges. Savvy mobile phone users are already looking at their options and choosing to use an international service that will offer significant cost savings on data and phone charges while abroad, compared to domestic providers.  This is going to be particularly important if travelling beyond the EU where there is currently no bill shock protection and prices are higher.”

Beier told TechWeekEurope that although this battle is won, the war is not over yet. “We might continue fighting for the roaming rules to be extended to other countries, outside of EU. One idea that is floating around is for the EU to approach other countries and make specific treaties with those countries. We are thinking about this.”

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