Today the European Parliament voted 578 to 10 (with 10 abstentions) to lower the price caps on mobile charges for people travelling with their mobiles throughout Europe. The new charging limits come into force on July 1st this year.
Maximum price caps were introduced in 2007 due to consumer outrage in the price of mobile roaming when travelling in Europe. Prices were unjustifiably high in Europe without any particular reason except that the operators could get away with it. The new cuts come as the European Commission aim to reduce the difference between home country mobile use and roaming in Europe to nothing by 2015.
The charges from 1st July 2012 are to be capped as follows:
Retail ceilings (charged to consumers) excluding VAT, prices in Euro cents.
|
Current |
1 July 2012 |
1 July 2013 |
1 July 2014 |
|
|
Data (per megabyte) |
None |
70 cents (56p) |
45 cents |
20 cents |
|
Phone calls made (per minute) |
35 cents |
29 cents (23p) |
24 cents |
19 cents |
|
Phone calls received (per minute) |
11 cents |
8 cents (6.5p) |
7 cents |
5 cents |
|
SMS (per SMS) |
11 cents |
9 cents (7p) |
8 cents |
6 cents |
There’s other good news beyond these basic price reductions that should bring we consumers even better savings. Starting from July 2014 consumers will be able to choose a network other than their existing national operator for roaming services. Here’s how the European Parliament press release puts it; “From 1 July 2014, customers will be able to buy their domestic and roaming services separately, from different operators, if they so wish, whilst keeping the same phone number. They will not be charged for switching providers and their home country provider will be obliged to inform them of this right.”
This is good news for the European traveller who sometimes had to juggle SIM cards to pay reasonable affordable charges for mobile use while losing the ability to easily contact and be contactable by the plethora of friends, relatives and business associates they might want to keep some line of communications open with. I also wonder how the separate roaming services will affect operator locked handsets. I recently called up to get my contract phone unlocked in anticipation of a short European trip and was informed “It’s £15 because we get charged that”. Disappointed with my contract provider’s answer I hit Google and found I could unlock it for free, the free method worked, nice result.
