Proposal for EU Roaming Fees Includes Global Cap

European lawmakers, who two years ago capped fees for mobile data roaming within the European Union at €50 a month, want to expand the protection to cover the whole world.

The proposal is part of a plan to extend Europe’s five-year-old limits on charges for voice, text and data roaming through 2022 and is likely go to a European Parliament vote by April. The current limits are set to expire in July. Extending the price controls is considered likely, but the rates proposed for the new limits through 2014 have been criticized by consumer advocates as too high, exceeding existing prices in Sweden and some other EU countries. Under the proposal the cost of roaming on voice calls would drop from 35 cents a minute to 25 cents on July 1 and to 15 cents by 2014. The cost of receiving a call would drop from 11 cents to 7 cents in July and to 5 cents in 2014. The price for sending a text message would fall to 8 cents in July this year and to 5 cents in July 2014. The proposal would require that the controls remain in place until 2022 but would set specific limits only through 2015. By then, lawmakers would reconvene to adjust the caps for the next three-year period.