Mobiel bellen binnen EU goedkoper (en)
Mobile phone calls abroad became cheaper on Sunday (30 September) after EU i -wide rules came into force.
Mobile operators may now only charge a maximum of €0.49 per minute for calls made abroad within the European Union and €0.24 per minute for calls received abroad.
Over the next two years, they will also be required to lower their prices further to €0.43 and €0.19.
The prices exclude value added tax rates, which vary across Europe.
For most mobile phone users in the EU, the new prices equal a double-digit percentage cut in roaming tariffs and for some it means less than half the rate charged by networks earlier this year.
Operators were obliged to tell customers about the new tariffs by the end of July and switch customers who requested the slashed prices by end of August. However, it was only on Sunday that the rules automatically came into force for all customers across Europe.
But Brussels is still concerned that companies may try and get around the rules following their strong opposition in the run up to the proposals.
It warned that further action could be taken against excessive roaming charges.
"I hope that operators now understand the EU's ability to act. My message to them: Move now and bring SMS and data roaming charges down quickly, or we will be forced to also intervene there very shortly," said information society commissioner Viviane Reding i.
Big operators have warned that the cuts could lead to a slowdown in domestic price decreases in order to compensate for the losses.
"It would be better for roaming prices to be determined by competition and market rather than by regulation," a spokesman for the operators' GSM Association said to the Guardian.
"The result is you get one price across Europe with most of the operators offering prices roughly around the cap. We think ultimately this is bad for competition and innovation," he added.
Over three years, the roaming regulation will expire because the Commission i believes that by then competition will have driven the roaming rates below the maximum rates, making the regulation outdated.