EU Parliament slashes roaming charges - starting this July

If that ain't the perfect end of a cloudy day like that! The European Parliament has just voted the new roaming price cuts. The first cuts will become valid on 1 July 2009 and there's a plan for more in the next couple of years.

As of 1 July 2009 the carriers in all EU member states are forced to cut down roaming prices so that they fit into the price ceiling set by the European Parliament.

The maximum set for European citizens traveling across the EU is 0.43 euro per minute for outgoing calls and 0.19 euro per minute for incoming calls.

Currently these prices are 0.46 euro and 0.22 euro, respectively - so a cut of about 10% is expected starting this July.

But wait, there's more. The short messages and data traffic also gets a much needed discount. SMS price will cost half of what it is now or more precisely 0.11 euro instead of 0.28 euro.

The data traffic charges are also revisited and from this summer a megabyte of wireless traffic will cost no more than 1.00 euro.

Update: As one of our readers pointed out, there has been a slight misunderstanding on our part regarding the data traffic charges. The limits that the EU Parliament has voted are in fact the maximum price carriers can charge each other, not what they can charge customers. Or as Allex Turner of Virgin Mobile UK points out, "in theory the networks can still charge whatever they want. The EU is hoping that by restricting the charges between the operators it will force the prices down due to competition."

And things are bound to get better. The planned reductions for next year's July will bring those prices even lower.

As of 1 July 2010 the highest price per minute for an outgoing call shall be no more than 0.39 euro, while the minute of an incoming call should cost no more than 0.15 euro. A megabyte of wireless data will cost 0.80 euro at most.

As of 1 July 2011 a minute of an outgoing call will be reduced to a maximum of 0.35 euro and a maximum of 0.11 euro for incoming roaming calls. A megabyte of wireless data will cost 0.50 euro at most.

All quoted prices exclude VAT where applicable.

All these measurements should make each European citizen feel like a part of one big family and reduce the stress while traveling abroad (or better said, when coming back from a trip abroad).

The final proof of that is the security measure introduced by the Parliament regulation, creating a mandatory cut-off mechanism to be activated when the roaming charges reach 50 euro (or higher set by the customer level). That should put sky rocketing bills due to misunderstanding of the pricing or rules a thing of the past.

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