The EU has introduced lower caps on the maximum prices operators can charge for roaming services in European countries.

These regulations will bring down costs across the board – the full table is below – but data charges have taken a particular cut. This time last year, the cap lay at €0.70 (£0.60) per MB. As of today, the maximum is €0.45 (£0.39) – and this time next year, the maximum will drop to just €0.20 (£0.17).

Operators also 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 indicates otherwise.

Ovum responds

“While the reduction in retail rates is quite significant – up to 36 per cent reductions in the cost of data connections – this may not be all good news for consumers,” says Luca Schiavoni, regulation analyst at Ovum. “The regulation only covers the EU area, which means that operators may recoup the lost revenues in Europe by increasing roaming charges to and from other countries. This is already happening in many cases, and is obviously detrimental for EU citizens travelling elsewhere and for non-EU citizens travelling to Europe.

“On the other hand, charges for data roaming are still perceived to be very high by end users, and this is causing them to turn off data connections on their smartphones when they are abroad, hence not making full use of their devices. Either with or without regulatory pressure, the market has to find a way to reduce the cost of using data roaming now that smartphone adoption has become widespread.”