It seems the days of ridiculous mobile phone roaming fees are behind us as new EU roaming charges come into force.
From today outgoing voice calls from one EU state to another can cost no more than €0.24 per minute.
This is down from €0.29 per minute over the past 12 months, with the figure set to fall again to €0.19 on July 1st 2014. Incoming calls can now cost no more than €0.07 per minute.
A megabyte of data can now be charged at a maximum of €0.45, with the figure again falling to €0.20 from July next year.
Under the new EU rules, operators have to send users a warning when they reach 80 per cent of their data-roaming bill limit and cut off the mobile internet connection once the limit has been reached, unless the customer has indicated they want to continue data roaming that particular month.
Member States’ national telecoms regulators must ensure that mobile phone operators comply with the new rules on data roaming and the lower prices of voice calls.
In the UK, O2 now offers reduced European roaming charges, with a 50p additional connection and the remainder of the call coming out of your normal call plan. O2 also offers data roaming in its call plans with subscribers getting a text when their data limit is approaching.
