Published 12:23 May 2, 2016

Updated 12:23 May 2, 2016

Roaming charges in the EU slashed by a third

By Dan Alexe
Contributing Editor, New Europe

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 New rules that slash roaming charges for using mobile phones in other European countries have come into effect on 1 May, putting an end to overcharging from phone companies.

For several years the European commission has been battling with the big mobile providers to force through cuts to the cost of making cross-border calls and using data in another country. Following lengthy negotiations, the EU announced in October last year that it will ban these charges from June 2017. Until then, the EU has put a cap on the amount operators can charge.
That means roaming charges in the EU will fall by at least a third starting immediately. From June next year, roaming charges in the EU will be abolished completely.
This applies to cost of making calls, sending texts and using data within the European Economic Area; that is the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The most an operator will be able to add to what you would pay domestically is five euros cents for a call, two cents for a text and five cents for each megabyte of data. Incoming voice calls will incur a charge of one cent per minute.
This applies to cost of making calls, sending texts and using data within the European Economic Area; that is the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
The roaming charges have event entered UK’s Brexit campaign, with prime minister David Cameron posting on Twitter: “EU roaming charges now down to near-zero; gone entirely next year. Consumers are better off remaining in the EU.”