Brussels The European Union will cut roaming fees for mobile internet services and reduce charges for making mobile-phone calls from outside a user's home country starting on July 1.
The European Parliament voted 578-10 in favour of the new rules, the final step for a proposal agreed upon by lawmakers and EU governments in March. The legislation sets a price limit for data roaming for the first time and extends one on call charges first imposed in 2007.
France Telecom and other telecommunication companies have complained that they may lose revenue as a result of the EU price caps and other regulation. Roaming price limits will pressure operators because data roaming revenue represents about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of wireless data revenue, according to research from Bloomberg Industries.
High roaming charges are "a constraint on businesses and a constraint on economic growth" because they discourage people from mobile Internet use when they are abroad, Neelie Kroes, the EU's Internet commissioner, told lawmakers yesterday.
Under the new rules, mobile-phone customers will choose which operator they want to use outside their home country from July 2014. People travelling outside the EU will also be warned when their mobile internet use exceeds €50 (Dh240) and must give their consent to continue using data.
Charges for using the Internet while travelling within the EU must not exceed 70 cents per megabyte from July 1 and 20 cents from July 2014. Call limits will be reduced to 29 cents per minute from July 1 and 19 cents from July 2014. Text messages must cost no more than 9 cents from July 1 and 6 cents from July 2014.
France Telecom is going to lose about €1 billion of revenue in 2012 as a result of a "very heavy burden coming from regulation and tax policies" including the EU roaming rules, Stephane Richard, the company's chief executive officer, said in February.
Vodafone Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao has said regulators "should stop having this continuous intervention on prices" to allow companies to invest in new technology.
