New EU roaming price caps from July 1

26 June 2013
by BEUC -- last modified 26 June 2013

Phone calls, SMS texts and data usage costs when roaming within the EU will be further axed from July 1.

Roaming has been a focal point of BEUC's work for many years and price caps have been regularly issued by the European Commission since 2007. July 2012 saw Europe's first regulatory limit on downloading prices, European consumers will next week benefit from further reductions, but the cost remains exorbitant.

Monique Goyens, Director General of The European Consumer Organisation commented:

"The concept of charging to roam fundamentally contradicts the European Single Market. 72% of travellers have said they limit their roaming calls for fear of cost and only 19% believed data roaming prices to be fair1. So this regulatory ramping down of prices is not just welcome, it's necessary.

"Slowly but surely we're getting closer to fair pricing, but we won't have succeeded until we see the end of roaming. Data prices when roaming within the EU still need serious work - a single Gigabyte can cost over EUR 460.

"We must now be vigilant against networks clustering prices around these limits or issuing compensatory cost rises elsewhere such as national calls or texts becoming more expensive or free minute bundles being reduced.

"We look forward to the Commission proposals for a Single Telecoms Market expected this September, where we hope further progress will be made towards the stated aim of eradicating roaming."

Current and new retail price caps (excluding VAT):

	1 July 2012	1 July 2013	1 July 2014
Data (per MB)	70 cents	45 cents	20 cents
Voice calls made (per minute)	29 cents	24 cents	19 cents
Voice calls received (per minute)	8 cents	7 cents	5 cents
SMS (per SMS)	9 cents	8 cents	6 cents

BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation has a membership of 41 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.