Roaming data costs in Europe to fall

The average cost of using smartphones and tablets when travelling in the European Union will be more than halved under new plans from Brussels that will delight customers but deliver a big blow to mobile operators.

The strict regime of price caps on mobile phone roaming within the EU is to be extended by four years to 2016, the European Commission will announce this week. It wants eventually to abolish premium charges for roaming data and voice services. In a setback to mobile operators, which had lobbied to stave off further regulation of what remains a lucrative segment, new price caps will from next year be imposed on data downloads as well as on voice calls and SMS messages. Browsing the Internet or receiving e-mails while abroad will cost no more than 90 euro cents ($1.31) per megabyte from July 2012, descending to 50 cents by 2014, compared with an average of more than €2 today despite prices being capped at the wholesale level. In a move to inject more competition into the roaming market, European travellers will be allowed to choose a different network while overseas than the one they subscribe to at home, in effect, upending the business models of operators.