Using mobiles abroadRoaming cost regulation

After more than a year of negotiations, cuts to the cost of calls made in much of Europe were approved by the European Union. As of October 2007, all providers must now offer cheaper European Union roaming prices to their customers.

Cheaper roaming

Under the new 'Eurotariff', EU residents now pay no more than 49 euro cents (about 38p) a minute to make calls back to their home country when roaming in EU countries, and no more than 24 euro cents (about 19p) a minute to receive calls.

Which provider offers the cheapest prices for roaming calls in the EU?

BT, Fresh, Orange, T-Mobile, Virgin and Vodafone have lowered their prices by as little as possible - all six charge the maximum 38p a minute to make and 19p a minute to receive calls in EU countries.

O2 has gone a little further and charges 35p a minute to make and 18p a minute to receive calls. Three's costs are among the lowest to call back to the UK and receive calls - at 25p and 10p a minute respectively. Tesco's charges are also reasonable at 35p a minute to make and 15p a minute to receive calls.

Bear in mind that, by law, the lower charges for making calls only apply for calls made back to the UK, and not calls to other countries or within the foreign country you're calling from. Some providers may include other countries but you'll need to double check to be sure.

Future changes

At the moment, charges to send text messages and use mobile internet abroad are unregulated. However, Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner, thinks that prices for these services are too high.

She has announced plans to reduce the cost of sending a text from the current European average of 23p (although it's more likely to be between 25p and 40p for UK mobile users) to a more appropriate cost of between 8p and 11p - comparable to the cost of sending a text within the UK on PAYG. At present, she says, the money made from texting abroad is 97% profit for mobile companies.

All going well, she hopes that consumers should see prices for texting in Europe drop by Summer 2009.

Commissioner Reding is also concerned that the cost of using mobile internet in Europe is far too high - but as it's a relatively new market she's giving industry more of a chance to bring prices down of its own accord before introducing further regulation. However she is concerned that lack of transparency about costs (a single MB of usage can cost more than £10) can lead to bill shock - there have been horror stories of UK mobile users running up bills of thousands of pounds.

If you want to use mobile internet while you're abroad, check with your provider how much it will cost - it may be able to put a limit on your usage so you don't exceed a certain level.

Industry resistance

Many mobile operators argued against capping the cost of roaming in Europe, saying that they would be forced to pass on the costs to other areas.

We think that, since the European Commission ruled that the cost of roaming was unjustifiably high before regulation, passing on costs elsewhere would therefore also be unjustifiable. We hope that Ofcom, the UK's telecoms regulator, keeps a close eye on the matter.

Of course, sadly, the European Commission only has the power to force price reductions in EU countries. In an ideal world, operators would recognise that if charges in Europe have been ruled to be unfair, then the same may be true on a wider international level.

However, with the exception of Three (in a few select countries), no companies have yet made any moves to reduce costs outside of Europe. It will be interesting to see if any changes to worldwide costs are forthcoming.

We will keep you up to date with developments.