EP: Lower Text and Data Roaming Charges
The European Parliament (EP) strongly supports the European Commission’s proposals to reduce consumer roaming charges for sending text messages and downloading data in the EU as of 1 July.
In September 2008, the Commission proposed to make sure that EU consumers do not have to pay more than 0.11 Euro per roamed text message in the EU (excluding VAT). This proposal was endorsed yesterday by the Parliament’s lead Committee on the new roaming legislation.
At present, text messaging roaming charges in the EU are on average 0.28 Euro per roamed SMS and can go up to over 0.80 Euro in some countries. The EP’s Committee also voted in favor of ambitious measures to reduce the cost of data roaming charges to 0.50 Euro per MB of roamed data. The EC had proposed a cap at 1 Euro.
Source: EC
