The cost of using a mobile phone away from your home network but within the EU falls again today, in line with EU rules first introduced in 2007.
Consumers opting for the EU-regulated “Eurotariff” will pay no more than €0.35 (£0.32) per minute for calls made, and €0.11 per minute for calls received while abroad in the EU.
This is the last in the series of regulated price cuts under the current EU Roaming Regulation which expires on 30 June 2012. Next week, the Commission will publish proposals for long-term solutions to address the underlying lack of competition in the markets for voice, text and data roaming.
On 30 June 2010, the Commission published a report indicating that, while such price cuts have temporarily reduced roaming prices during the regulated period, the current rules did not solve the underlying problem of lack of competition in roaming services, and prices remained stubbornly close to the retail caps. This creates the need for a new regulatory intervention with a view to meeting, in a durable way, the target set in the Digital Agenda for Europe, that the difference between roaming and national telecoms tariffs should approach zero by 2015.
The European Commission believes that such a target will be met if competition in mobile markets gives consumers a rapid and easy choice of roaming service at, or close to, a relevant competitive domestic price level. For this purpose, the Commission will soon be presenting a proposal for a long-term solution to the structural problems in the markets for voice, text and data roaming. 
“These new price caps will temporarily reduce retail prices for making and receiving voice calls when in another EU country during the coming year. But we have to tackle roaming problems at the root with a long lasting structural approach,” says Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice President for the Digital Agenda.
From today, the cap for data roaming wholesale prices (the price which operators charge each other) will fall to €0.50 (£0.45) per MegaByte – down from €0.80 (£0.71) – per MB. The current Regulation does not establish a retail price cap for data services. Consumers and business travellers will continue to be protected from unexpected “bill shocks” for downloading data over mobile networks, however, as monthly bills for data downloading are limited to €50 (£45) unless the customer explicitly agrees otherwise.
There’s more information on the European Commissions roaming website.
