The European Parliament has approved measures which will drastically cut the cost of using mobile phones while travelling within the 27 EU member states from July.
From July 1 mobile operators will be able to charge a maximum of 43 cent per minute (excluding VAT) for outgoing phone calls, while receiving calls will be charged at a maximum rate of 19 cent per minute. In two years, those maximum charges will fall to 35 cent and 11 cent per minute respectively.
Read more on EU roaming tariffs here
Sending a text while roaming in the EU costs an average of 28 cent but that is now set to drop to 11 cent.
The measures were approved by MEPs in Strasbourg this afternoon by 646 votes to 22.
The package also introduces per second billing. Currently customers are billed per minute. It is estimated that this means paying for 20% more time than is actually used.
Mobile phone customers will also be able to set maximum cost limits for data services, to prevent them from unintentionally running up large bills by downloading material on their phones while abroad.
The new package also aims to help people who use their mobiles or other hand-held devices to surf the internet while they are travelling within the EU. It will limit the wholesale price of transferring a megabyte of data while on the road to a maximum of €1 from July 2009, then to 80 cent from July 2010 and 50 cent from July 2011. The price for such services currently stands at about €1.68.
Surfing the internet on mobile phones while roaming has been particularly expensive. In one case, a German woman faced a bill of €46,000 for downloading a television programme while on holiday in France.
