Cheaper Roaming in the EU Starting Today

Mobile phone users living in the European Union will be able to enjoy smaller roaming fees for their calls starting today, July 1. As many of you might already know, the European Parliament approved not too long ago the lowering of roaming costs all around the EU, and the move will affect not only the cost of voice calls made from abroad, but those connected with sending text messages or reading emails on a mobile phone as well.

EU's executive arm proposed the lowering of tariffs at the end of 2008, and the European Union ruling was approved earlier this year. The new prices that will take effect starting today will end up in providing users with 60 percent cheaper text messaging while traveling in the EU; the same cost cut will apply to surfing the Web as well. “All Europeans making calls or sending texts with their mobiles can experience the EU's single market without borders. The roaming rip-off is now coming to an end,” EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement recently.

Starting today, roamed mobile calls have been capped at 43 euro cents per minute, compared to the 46-cent price previously available. At the same time, the calls retrieved while abroad will cost only 19 cents, dropping from the 22-cent price available before. The cost cuts will go even further in the future, reaching 39 cents for calls made and 15 cents for calls received starting July 1, 2010, and going all the way down to 35 cents and 11 cents starting July 1, 2011.

Roamed text messages will cost 11 euro cents (15 U.S. cents), excluding sales tax, a significant drop from the 28-cent price perceived until now. When it comes to data roaming costs, the price per megabyte has been lowered to 1 euro, down from the 1.68-euro fee in place until yesterday. Another change that will be made starting today is the fact that operators will introduce per-second billing after 30 seconds for roamed calls made, while the phone calls received will be billed from the first second.