Welcome!

Login Register
< > Virgin Media's Spotify deal includes ... China Mobile app store has ...

EU to slash data roaming charges

Tim Green
EU to slash data roaming charges

Expected to cap rates at 90 Euro cents a megabyte – and 50 cents by 2014.

The changes, drawn up by EU telecoms commissioner Neelie Kroes, have been suggested in a draft legislative document.

The EU regularly clamps down on the telcos, which have been known to charge 200 times domestic rates for overseas calls, texts and data.

It says prices will be capped and users will also be able to choose which network they call from.

Currently, data roaming is capped at €50 ($73), so this is a drastic cut.

However, data is very much the focus of the moment, with so many smartphone users either hit with billshock when they return from abroad or simply turning data off for the duration.

Article continues below

Advertisement

Indeed, research from MACH suggests 40 per cent of travellers turn their phones off completely,

It's all a lost revenue opportunity and a PR own goal for the operators.

The EU last week said retail price caps for voice calls will be set at 32 cents a minute for outgoing calls or 11 cents a minute for incoming calls as of July 1, 2012.

By July 2013, the caps would fall  to 28 cents and 10 cents, respectively. The retail price for an SMS text message would be capped at 10 cents from July 1st, 2012.

"Today voice roaming prices within Europe are still more than three times the level of domestic charges," the commission's website says.

"For data roaming the consumer often pays less than five cents for downloading a megabyte of data at home, but this may turn into €2.60/MB when downloading abroad."

The proposal must also be reviewed by the European Parliament and the EU Council.

Tags: eu , european commission , data roaming , european union

Add a new comment

You need to be logged in to post comments. If you do not have an account then please register.

Comments

0 comments

There are no comments yet, be the first to add one!