Europe plans on eliminating roaming fees by 2015

When the European Union was formed the goal was to eliminate the need for multiple currencies and to improve trade between nations. As the years have gone by however, the EU has become similar to the United States of America in that there’s regulation that’s passed by high ranking elected officials which all 27 members of the EU need to follow. This has caused a massive conservative movement to form, composed of people who wish to how life was before the EU, but that’s another topic of discussion all together. One of favorite EU officials is Viviane Reding, who hails from Luxembourg and is currently serving as European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship, but before that (November 2004 to February 2010) she was the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media. One of her biggest achievements is bringing down the cost of roaming. Since 2007 the maximum amount you can be billed for a phone call has dropped by 6% every year. As of this month the prices are capped at 32 pence per minute (plus VAT) for outgoing calls, and 10 pence per minute (plus VAT) for incoming calls.

But wait a minute, in America you can go to any one of the 50 states and make a phone call and have said call not be considered “roaming”. The EU is looking to do the same thing and their goal is that by 2015 a call you make or receive from any country in the EU should cost the same as what you pay for calls at home. It’s certainly ambitious, and right now this goal only concerns voice calls. By 2015 there will be a slew of LTE networks covering the EU, and since voice calls on those are nothing more than data, how exactly is it going to be billed?

I’m sure they’ll figure out the technical details, but for now … way to go EU!

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

chris spackman

America is a country so of course you won’t be paying a roaming charge!? There are also 52 states in America and i hope to god the EU ‘Project’ fails and they keep their noses out of other countries business.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=620173103 Bengt Beier

Have you already seen the website of Europeans for Fair Roaming (www.fairroaming.org) where we have been and are working to lobby for lower roaming charges within the EU? We also just published our newest Press Dossier on the issue there with information on the issue, stakeholders and the new proposals the EU is expected to present on Wednesday…
http://www.facebook.com/wonkotsane Stuart Parr

The EU is not Europe and Europe is not the EU. You’re confusing the two. And your knowledge of the history of the EU is also lacking – the EU was not set up to eliminate the need for currencies or improve trade, it was set up from the very outset as a political union. The Schuman Declaration is the founding document of what is now the EUSSR and it says that it’s the first step to a federal Europe. And as the previous commentator says, the USA is one country whereas the EU isn’t yet a country thank god. You don’t pay roaming charges travelling between states in the USA because it’s one country but you do in the EU because it’s lots of different countries. The EU calls these countries “states” to try and fool people into thinking they’re the same as the states in the USA. It’s just propaganda.

Now onto the subject of the mobile phones. This will be a disaster for consumers, especially in the UK and Ireland where we rarely travel between different EU countries. People in Europe travel between countries in the EU more often than we do, partly thanks to the EU’s environmental laws that make it prohibitively expensive to fly anywhere. But even in Europe most people won’t leave their own country and they will be paying much higher bills to subsidise those people who do travel between different countries. You can forget about getting the best new phones for free from your network – they will be losing so much money from not charging roaming fees that they’ll have to cut back on the handset subsidy.
Baldev

Why not this year? Didn’t they have made enough money already or the greed still there to rip mobile users?
Compare prices to the eastern country’s for example India the call charges to calling any where in the world are only less than 5p (£) so why we have to get ripped by service providers???
I think it’s only to do with price fixing by people on the top