As from today, European mobile phone operators are obliged, under EU roaming rules, to offer customers a cut-off limit facility to protect them from 'bill shocks' for surfing the Internet with their mobile phones and laptops while travelling in other EU countries. Under the roaming rules adopted by the EU's Council of Ministers and European Parliament in June 2009, this cut-off mechanism will, following a warning, cut consumers' mobile connection to the internet while abroad when their bill reaches a specified limit.
Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes commented "Protection against data roaming bill shocks is a useful step towards building customers' confidence to use mobile networks to surf the Internet when travelling around Europe. Such confidence is essential if people and businesses are to use the Internet to its full potential".
Under roaming Regulation N° 544/2009, mobile phone operators are obliged to offer their customers from 1st March 2010 a monthly cut-off limit of €50 (about £45). They can also offer customers any other limit. They will receive a warning when they hit 80% of the chosen limit. Until 1 July 2010, customers need to make a deliberate choice in order to benefit from a cut-off limit. But, customers who do not make a choice by 1 July 2010 will have the cut-off limit set at €50 by default as from that date.
The cut-off limit available from 1st March 2010 will guarantee more transparency and protection for consumers, and it will ensure that they will no longer face bill shocks for using data roaming services.
Under the EU's roaming rules, the price that operators pay each other per megabyte (MB) downloaded has been limited to a safeguard level of 1€ per MB, and it will fall over the next two years. These savings should be passed on to consumers and deliver lower prices for surfing the Internet while abroad says the EU.
The European Commission says it will continue to monitor developments in roaming services and the correct implementation of the provisions, in close cooperation with BEREC, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, which held its first meeting on 28th January 2010. The Commission will analyse the functioning of the roaming Regulation, including the provisions on data roaming, in an interim report due in June 2010 and in a more extensive review in June 2011.