New Mobile Roaming charges

maj 7, 2013

Pretekli projekti

Mobile phone roaming caps come into force

Yesterday, new EU limits came into force that will reduce the amount mobile phone providers can charge for using data or sending SMS abroad. It is focused on roaming abroad when you travel in the EU and not in your own country.

The introduction of this law prevents people from receiving appalling mobile bills whilst being abroad. The rates were too high so the EU law capped the roaming charges.

See the changes from June 2013 to July 2013 for the UK.

New mobile roaming price caps

	Summer 2012	Summer 2013
Internet browsing	70 cents per MB	45 cents per MB
Making a call	29 cents per minute	24 cents per minute
Receiving a call	8 cents per minute	7 cents per minute
Sending a text	9 cents per SMS	8 cents per SMS

However, since Croatia joined the EU yesterday, it faces the biggest change for those people who visit Croatia or those who have a Croatian contract coming to other EU countries. See the example for travellers:

Travellers to Croatia see biggest change

Data used during a week’s trip	June 2013 data charges	July 2013 data charges
Checking a map five times	€ 30	€ 2.25
Checking social media accounts every day for half an hour	€ 210	€ 15.75
Uploading one photo every day	€ 84	€ 6.30
Sending one email per day	€ 0.84	€ 0.06
TOTAL	€ 324.84	€ 24.36

This is the moment when travellers discover they have run up huge bills after making calls and using data applications, such as maps, while away. There will be further reductions in prices in 2014.

Full roaming tariffs: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/node/90