Roaming free: No more extra mobile phone costs in the EU from 2017

Mobile roaming charges are set to be scrapped within the European Union from June 2017. Under the new rules, mobile phone users will pay the same price to make calls, send text messages and use data wherever they are in the EU, meaning calling friends or family while travelling will make no difference to bills from June 15, 2017, the European Commission announced. European negotiators have also reached an agreement on so-called net neutrality rules, which will see internet providers banned from blocking or slowing down access to particular content, services or applications.

Europeans have been calling and waiting for the end of roaming charges as well as for net neutrality rules. They have been heard.

Andrus Ansip, European Commission vice-president for the Digital Single Market

Andrus Ansip, the European Commission’s vice-president for the Digital Single Market, said: “We still have a lot of work ahead of us to create a Digital Single Market. Our plans to make it happen were fully endorsed by heads of state and government last week, and we should move faster than ever on this.” Roaming charges will become cheaper from April next year, when operators will only be able to charge a small additional amount to domestic prices of up to 0.05 euro per minute of call made, 0.02 euro per SMS sent, and 0.05 euro per MB of data, excluding VAT. Under the new net neutrality rules, users across the EU will be free to access the content of their choice and will no longer be unfairly blocked or slowed down.

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