EU will cut roaming charges from July 2012

2011-07-25



As of 1 July 2011, in accordance to new EU regulation on roaming charges, mobile operators in member countries were required to lower their retail prices for roaming calls. The regulation will also have an impact on Central and Eastern European countries, which are the EU Members.
According to new ordinance, customers are also allowed to choose the most favorable roaming deal, what might additionally enhance competition and push the prices down.

The lower price caps will come into force in three stages by the end of July 2014.

Current and proposed maximum net retail price caps (€) in EU

	1 July 2011	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per MB)	None	0.90	0.70	0.50
Voice-calls made (per minute)	0.35	0.32	0.28	0.24
Voice-calls received (per minute)	0.11	0.11	0.10	0.10
SMS (per SMS)	0.11	0.10	0.10	0.10

Source: European Commission, 2011

Current and proposed maximum net wholesale price caps (€) in EU

	1 July 2011	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per MB)	0.50	0.30	0.20	0.10
Voice (per minute)	0.18	0.14	0.10	0.06
SMS (per SMS)	0.04	0.03	0.03	0.02

Source: European Commission, 2011

These roaming price cups will remain in force at least till mid-2016.
To protect roaming services users from the “bill shock”, monthly bills for data access over mobile networks whilst abroad will continue to be limited to €50 unless the customer explicitly disabled this limit.

In countries outside the EU service providers are free to charge as much as they want and no change is expected in the near future.