European Mobile Roaming Prices Drop July 1, 2012

Mobile data charges will be price capped starting July 1, 2012, with the limit set at no more than €0.70 a megabyte. That will represent a decline of about 75 percent, at least for European Union residents using their devices in other EU member countries.

The EU rule does not affect the prices providers can charge for data roaming outside the European Union. It isn't yet clear how much service provider revenue will be reduced. 

The EU market for mobile roaming services can be divided into voice services, SMS and

In 2009, the retail EU roaming market accounted for 4,777 billion EUR in revenues, a study noted. 

Some 71 percent of that was voice roaming charges, 17 percent for data and around 11 percent for SMS. 

The total wholesale market size in 2009 amounted to 1,253 billion EUR.

Roaming revenues appear to represent around 3.68 percent of the total EU mobile market. Between
2007 and 2009, revenues for voice roaming fell quite significantly as a result of both lower
prices as well as lower volumes of traffic (-3,2%). 


For SMS roaming, the impact of the regulation was seen in lower service provider revenues in 2009 compared to 2008.


For data services, the increase in volume of 43,6 percent between 2008 and 2009 combined with the imposed decrease in wholesale prices led to an overall decrease in revenues, the study says. At the retail level, however, where no price ceilings were imposed for data roaming, the total revenues in 2009 remained at the same level as in 2008.




The new European Union law means that prices for making a call abroad will be lowered to 29 cents per minute, while it will cost eight cents to receive a call, nine cents to send a text and 70 cents per MByte  of download data used. This is a saving of 75 per cent compared to roaming costs in 2007. 
Vodafone "Euro Traveller"  allows U.K. customers to pay no more for calls, messages and data when they're on the continent as they do at home, after an opt-in payment of £3 a day.

The Everything Everywhere brand will offer customers the opportunity to buy "Travel Boosters" when they use their smartphones or 3G modems overseas.

Smartphone owners can pick 3, 10 or 50MB bundle for £1, £2.50 and £10, respectively - or 33p, 25p or 20p a megabyte. Each bundle lasts for 30 days or until the data has been used, whichever comes first.

For modem owners, the price bands are 3, 20, 50 and 200MB, priced at £1, £5, £10 and £35, respectively. Again, that's 33p, 25p, 20p and 17.5p a megabyte.