European Union welcomes new even lower roaming charges

As promised, as of yesterday the citizens of the 27 EU countries are paying less for calls and data while travelling across the European Union.This is the second step in the EU Parliament program for cutting the roaming charges, which started last year and will be completed next July when prices will be pushed down once again.

Calls and text messages

To refresh your memory, last April the European Parliament voted in favor of forcing network carriers in all EU countries to lower roaming prices under the set levels. And as of 1 July 2009 EU citizens travelling across the European Union should pay no more than 0.43 euro per minute for outgoing calls, 0.19 euro for incoming calls and 0.11 euro per sent SMS.

As of 1 July 2010 the maximum charge for outgoing calls drops to 0.39 euro per minute, while incoming calls shuldn't cost more than 0.15 euro per minute. Receiving voice mail messages should become free altogether.

The third and last price cut should kick in on July 2011. Then EU roaming charges will fall to 0.35 euro per minute of outgoing calls and 0.11 euro for incoming calls.

Data

Data charges underwent changes as well. On 1 July 2009 the wholesale price per megabyte was lowered to 1 euro. Yesterday it dropped to 0.80 euro per megabyte and on 1 July 2011 it will be cut to 0.50 euro per megabyte.

However, the data charge limits voted by the EU Parliament are actually the maximum price network carriers should charge each other, not the one they should charge customers. In other words, in this case the EU Parliament relies on the competition between operators to result in lowering data charges, rather than imposing a price cap.

Cut off limit per month

The last price cut concerning roaming charges is the 50 euro cut off limit per month, which should leave shockingly high phone bills in the past. Thanks to it a cut off mechanism is activated when the roaming charges reach 50 euro. Of course, if needed customers can set a higher (or even lower) cut off limit.

Keep in mind that all quoted prices exclude VAT where applicable and are for calls, messages and data within the European Union.

That is how a Summer should start. Now, if we could get a few sunny days instead of all the rain we have been seeing lately, it would be perfect.

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