Halt to bad consumer surprises thanks to data roaming cut-off limit

BEUC welcomes that, as of the 1st of July 2010, a mandatory cut-off limit on data roaming charges lowers the financial risks for European mobile phone users. The maximum charge for data roaming (connecting to mobile internet, downloading and sending files when abroad) will be set at €50, unless consumers deliberately choose another limit. Furthermore, maximum wholesale prices for data roaming will decrease from €1 to 80 cents per megabyte.

Further to the €50 data roaming cut-off limit, prices of making and receiving calls when abroad within the EU will also decrease to 39 and 15 cents respectively. This decrease is in response to a longstanding consumer demand. Consumer organisations have consistently warned that consumers will only marginally use their phones when abroad as long as prices remain needlessly high.

Monique Goyens, Director General of BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, said:

"We are satisfied that consumers travelling in Europe are protected against unnecessarily high roaming costs. In today's Europe without borders, consumers should be able to use their mobile phones and laptops without facing the risk of astronomical bills. We now expect operators to pass on the decrease of wholesale prices to users.

"In Europe, using your mobile phone abroad should not lead to unjustifiable charges. We therefore welcome the fact that differences between costs of national voice calls and SMS compared to roaming costs are set to disappear by 2015."

BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation has a membership of 43 well respected, independent national consumer organisations from 31 European countries (EU, EEA and applicant countries). BEUC acts as the umbrella group in Brussels for these organisations and our main task is to represent our members and defend the interests of all Europe's consumers.