Mobile roaming charges in EU to tumble from Saturday

The cost of roaming across the European Union will fall significantly from midnight on Friday as an interim charging cap comes into effect ahead of a full ban next year.

The cap on mobile phone roaming surcharges across the EU means operators will not be able to exceed 5 cent per minute for voice calls, 2 cent for text messages and 5 cent per megabyte of data.

Less than 10 years ago, making a four-minute call to Ireland while on a trip to Paris would have cost an Irish consumer as much as €5, while someone in Malta would have had to pay €9.76 for a call of the same length.

Depending on the provider and the plan, downloading a megabyte of data just four years ago could have cost in excess of €5.

Mobile phone operators have fought a fierce battle to hang on to their roaming cash cow but eventually they raised the white flag last autumn.

Roaming charges will end altogether on June 15th, 2017, and from that point phone users will pay exactly the same price as they would at home when they make calls, send text messages and use data no matter where they are in the EU.

The new rules are aimed at preventing "bill-shock" which has seen consumers being hit with massive bills after downloading films or other data while travelling in Europe.

Consumers have been especially vulnerable to roaming charges since the smartphone market exploded and mobile data consumption soared.

€46,000 bill

In 2005, roaming generated €8.5 billion in turnover for mobile operators, of which up to €5.7 billion was profit. Famously, a German woman who downloaded an episode of Lost while on holidays in France came home to a bill of €46,000 in roaming data charges.

While consumers stand to make big savings, the European Commission's vice-president Andrus Ansip who has responsibility for the Digital Single Market, said the move was "not only about money, this is about bringing down barriers in the Digital Single Market".

Gunther H Oettinger, the European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, said the agreement showed that the EU could deliver tangible results to improve the daily life of Europeans, adding that " roaming charges will be soon old memories".