It looks as though charges for calling, texting and mobile internet browsing when ‘roaming’ on foreign networks within the EU will be cut from 1st July 2009. The deal now needs to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, with approval by the Industry Committee on 31st March, and a vote planned for 21-24 April.
Call prices – already capped – will be a maximum of €0.43 per minute (excluding VAT) for outgoing and a maximum of €0.19 per minute (excluding VAT) for incoming roaming calls. They’ll be charged by the second but could have an initial minimum charging period of 30 seconds. Text messages when roaming will cost a maximum of €0.11 (excluding VAT). Other data roaming services won’t have consumer prices capped but will be have a price cap for the rates the host network charges a roaming customer’s home network; a maximum of €1.00 per megabyte (excluding VAT). Consumers will be able to set a maximum financial limit for roamed data from 2010, with a default €50 (excluding VAT) limit for all customers. [Press statement]