All consumers hoped Viviane Reding would get her way and get the European parliament to sanction the introduction of caps on overseas mobile roaming charges, and now it is official. When she began her campaign in 2005, a UK customer on holiday in say Spain, would have to pay about £1 a minute to receive a mobile call, even if it was unwanted, from his or her native country. Now that will fall to a cap of €0.19 per minute (around 17 pence) something under to one fifth of the cost.
Bill shock post holiday was quite common with people returning home within the 27 countries of Europe, to bills of €200 or €300 for a couple of calls home each day during one week’s holiday, often more than the holiday itself had cost.
The changes have been much talked about but on one previous occasion Reding was knocked back and told to let the cellular operators police their own glacially slow countdown in roaming charges, so it has been a long time coming and this was a second attempt at pushing through legislation.
The new rates will come into effect during July when roaming charges for outgoing calls in Europe will be capped at €0.41 per minute and incoming calls at just €0.19. Later this will fall further in a controlled fashion in the lead up to 2011 to €0.35 and €0.11. Data roaming charges have already been capped at €1.00 per megabyte under a separate but related initiative pushed through by Reding.
Mobile operators everywhere are decrying the charges, claiming they will undermine operator competitiveness during a recession, but cellular operator results in Europe this quarter have shown that they hardly suffer form the recession, and it’s the poor old man in the street that needs a break. Reding’s statement welcoming the legislation referred openly to roaming as ‘a rip-off’ in Europe.