EU’s Roaming rules will progressively lower current retail price caps on voice and texting (SMS) services and introduce a new retail price cap for mobile data services. These caps will operate as a safeguard for consumers until 30 June 2017. Under the new rules, which will enter into force on 1st July 2012, consumers will pay no more than:
– 29 cents per minute to make a call,
– 8 cents per minute to receive a call,
– 9 cents to send a text message
– 70 cents per Megabyte (MB) to download data or browse the Internet whilst travelling abroad (charged per Kilobyte used).
fot. Morguefile.com
These regulated price caps will progressively go down so that by 1 July 2014, roaming consumers will be paying no more than 19 cents per minute to make a call, a maximum 5 cents per minute to receive a call, maximum 6 cents to send a text message and maximum 20 cents per Megabyte (MB) to download data or browse the Internet whilst travelling abroad (charged per Kilobyte used).
Under the new rules, consumers will also receive information about roaming charges when they travel to countries outside the EU, which will help them to more easily avoid „bill shocks” when using their smart device abroad.
The new rules will provide for the extension of the alert system currently in place within the EU. As from 1st July 2012, people travelling outside the EU will get a warning text message, email or pop-up window when they are nearing €50 of data downloads, or their pre-agreed level. Consumers will have to confirm they are happy to go over this level in order to continue their data roaming.
