EU parliament agrees new roaming deal

The cost of using mobile phones abroad will be cut from July following an agreement between MEPs and the EU's Czech presidency.

The compromise reached this morning extends the roaming arrangements made in 2007, and still needs to find approval from the parliament and the council.

ALDE rapporteur Adina-Ioana Valean said she was "hopeful that all parties will endorse a concrete first-reading agreement so that European consumers can fully benefit from this new regulation by the beginning of this summer".

From July 2009 the deal sets a ceiling on call charges of a maximum of €0.43 per minute (excluding VAT) for outgoing, and a maximum of €0.19 per minute (excluding VAT) for incoming roaming calls.

The arrangement also foresees further drops in call rates from July 2010. From this date, the maximum for outgoing calls becomes €0.39 per minute (excluding VAT) and the set limit for incoming roaming calls becomes €0.15 per minute (excluding VAT).

Finally, from July 2011, the cost of making a call will be no more than €0.35 per minute (excluding VAT) and a maximum of €0.11 per minute (excluding VAT) for receiving one.

Provisions regarding text messages are also included in the text, with the cap set at €0.11 (excluding VAT) from this July.

Other data roaming services (such as sending emails and pictures or web-browsing from mobile phones or laptops) will be regulated at wholesale level with a cap on the rates a host company can charge the original supplier.

Financial limits upon customer spending on their phones are also considered in the deal, with a new limit of €50 of call usage to avoid "bill shocks".

This limit would automatically apply to all customers who have not made another choice by July 2010.

When put into action providers will have to warn their customers when 80 per cent of the agreed limit has been reached.

After this point another notification should be sent, indicating the procedure to be followed if the customer wishes to continue data roaming. If the user does not respond the provider should cease all data roaming services.

At the request of MEPs the commission will review by mid-2011 at the latest "the extent to which consumers have benefited through real reductions in the price of roaming services" and the competitive situation of smaller, independent or newly started operators.

The regulation will expire by 30 June 2012, says the compromise. The existing regulation for roaming phone calls would otherwise expire by the end of June 2010.

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