Roaming

When you travel to a foreign country with your mobile phone, you are roaming - your mobile phone company and one in the foreign country work together to keep you connected, so you can make and receive mobile phone calls, write text messages, surf the Web and download content.

However, weak competition among national operators for roaming customers has, at times, led to excessive prices for these services.

The European Commission's first rules to address overcharging in roaming prices came in 2007 - the “Eurotariff” capped maximum prices for phone calls made and received while abroad. These maximum prices apply to all consumers, unless they opt for special packages offered by operators. These rules have since been periodically reviewed and reformed, with further reductions in price caps and automatic protections against data roaming bill shocks.

The results on roaming tariffs speak for themselves:

• EU roaming rules now deliver consumers savings of 75% across a range of mobile roaming services (voice calls, text messages, mobile internet) compared to 2007 prices;
• for a typical businessperson travelling in the EU, this means savings of over €1000 per year;
• a family taking an annual holiday in another EU country can expect to save at least €200;
• the 2009 rules cut the prices for data by around six times.