The European Union has been battling to lower mobile roaming costs but several years, but it may soon abolish them altogether. The Guardian reports that the European commission will soon publish legislature proposing a ban on operators charging for roaming fees, giving customers a simple flat fee for their service that will work across all of Europe.
Unsurprisingly, networks such as Vodafone and Orange are completely opposed to the move, saying that it could cost them as much as £5.9 billion. Still, at least others are being proactive regarding roaming costs. Three recently reintroduced its “Like Home” service, which allows customers to use their tariff in countries where the carrier already has a presence without seeing additional charges.
Abolishing roaming charges may be the next step for Europe, but price cuts for general roaming have still yet to come into force. The last of those measures are due to begin in 2014, with voices calls and text messages seeing minor price cuts. Data, however, will see a huge drop. Right now, data is capped at 45 cents per MB throughout Europe, but that will be dropped to to 20 cents per MB starting from July 1st 2014.
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