Those dreaded European roaming charges are finally coming to an end. The decision was reached on 30th June after negotiators from the European Parliament, the EU governments and the European Commission came to an agreement. The proposal was initially put forward two years ago and has been discussed ever since.
This is great news for both UK and European travellers who are often caught out when using their phones abroad to make calls, text, and browse the internet leaving them with sky-high bills on their return.
But the decision still needs approval from 28 governments and the European Council before it can go ahead.
What will this mean for European holidaymakers travelling within the EU?
According to the European Commission ‘If you pay for a monthly volume of minutes, SMS and data in your country, any voice call, SMS and data session you make while travelling abroad in the EU will be deducted from that as if you were at home, with no extra charges,’.
This means holidaymakers travelling inside Europe will no longer have to worry about monitoring the number of calls they take and receive while abroad as they will be no extra charges.
However, until this date providers are allowed to add surcharges, but this will be at a reduced rate. And from April 2016 mobile operators are set to decrease roaming charges which means they will still be extra charges but they will be noticeably lower. Therefore, Europeans will be able to enjoy cheaper tariffs of up to €0.05 per minute of call made, €0.02 per SMS sent, and €0.05 per megabytes of data.
This agreement also means that all traffic will be equal. Data won’t be blocked or delayed, and content providers won’t be allowed to pay internet carriers to prioritise their data.
So, when will this come into force?
EU officials have said that roaming charges when travelling inside Europe will end from the 15th June 2017.
Thinking of jetting off to one of Europe’s top tourist destinations then it looks like 2017 is the year to do it.
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